OPPORTUNITY COSTS. Lots of discussion of the meaning of productivity and the return to skills, if you know where to look. There are lamentations about the rising opportunity costs of haute cuisine at Crooked Timber ("There seems to be a lesson here. Why does “progress” lead to some things being worse? French cooking, higher education and typography to name but three. Often because it raises the relative cost of the real thing and there’s a cheaper sort-of-functional-but-crap-really alternative which can be deployed. We put up with it, and spend the money we saved on something else, but we know if we’re honest with ourselves that something of quality has been lost.") and Invisible Adjunct. Methinks their take is a bit pessimistic. As much haute cuisine is a matter of getting the right sauce and the right texture, there is likely to be some combination of chemistry and preservation that permits the flavor, consistency, and texture to be indistinguishable from fresh, it just hasn't been invented yet. Moreover, there is an element of the hobby in cooking properly (visit Vodka Pundit on Fridays; those aren't secrets of his day job you're reading) and people who genuinely enjoy traditional French cooking certainly can use their granite counter tops and cabinets full of one-purpose implements to produce such stuff if they want. (That is not intended as a criticism. I freely admit to having seven different soldering tools.)

Marginal Revolution notes that technological fixes akin to the freezing and marinade chemistry are at work in music, and Knowledge Problem adds a bit more.

Improvements in industrial technology, and open trade, have changed the way model railroaders do things. To build this baby, start with some brass sheet and bar, configure the milling machine, measure, bend, shape, cut, cuss, burn your fingers, cuss, measure, break, shape, cut, cuss, drill, tap, and screw around. Or plunk down about the same sum of money and take delivery of one already painted by industrial methods. (Many of the brass-working shops in Asia do the model railroad business as a small sideline to other business.) There is a definite generation gap in model railroading. The oldest modelers are often liquidating their collections of home-built stuff, which sometimes has a lot of potential and sometimes is just plain crude, and the stuff with potential is often cheap, because the newcomers to the hobby don't know how to improve it, but they do recognize a bargain on a factory-built model.