> Isn't that the idea?

No, I think the article is not considering a utopian post-scarcity future. It's considering a fully automated paperclip future except the paperclips are bank balances for the 1%:

> corporations and banks do billions of virtual transactions every day with companies that have no product, no service, and not a single employee. The transactions and loans they move back and forth in off-shore accounts do not directly correspond to physical money, or gold, or any actual resource.

The argument in TFA as best I can tell is that "the economy" can be decoupled from "real things". I assume the trillionaire class would each have a few private farms to keep themselves fed, or just eat entirely synthetic produce - but their production needs would be tiny compared to the rest of this "economy" which would mainly be doing... something else?

I can't quite follow it, honestly - despite the author's arguments about what's logical, I can't imagine or believe in a sustainable system not intimately tied to real resources and production.

Even if the trillionaire class uploads their brains into silicon, that silicon has material needs such as electricity. Can't escape the material world.

But that's still not "abundance for all".

It is never really “for free”.

It appears free because machines, like perfect slaves, don’t ask to be paid for work.

They still need to be fed though, energy, iron, etc.

No matter how you turn it, it can’t be free. Meaning you can’t benefit from it without owning it or trading something.

> How will you starve when the robots will produce food for everyone, for free? Isn't that the idea?

If the people aren't needed then why dedicate robots and land to feed them, for free?

> I think may be the government. The population will have to pay taxes for their maintenance. But it will be vastly less.

Taxes from what?