Yes, if you look at the examples the author used such as Indian cotton or tobacco as drivers of increased voluntary labor, both of those carried immediate intangible value as status symbols or bragging rights on top of their material value. It further stratified society which led to more people wanting more stuff and... on and on. What is this cognitive surplus value going to bring? I don't get it.

I guess their point is that, for example-- instead of requiring heaps of study and a genius mind to learn to how to reverse engineer complex things over the course of years, their intelligence can go to something that... AI can't do yet?