I think most people aren't noticing we are in a literal AI revolution right now and it's a big deal, just as the industrial revolution and computer resolution were before it. The sheer number of jobs that are about to become obsolete or just unprofitable to do is astounding. If nothing else, wages are going to nosedive in these professions.
Teaching, helpline staff, journalism, music creation, art creation, programming, writing, song creation...list goes on and on. You'll still have the best people working, but the lower level staff will be gone.
We might even reach Wallmart levels where the government pays the company to employ people they don't want, just for social reasons.
I actually have been noticing it since 2021.
Supposelly the end of the most strict pandemic measure was supposed to return back our life to normality but no, instead, we just rushed to the other side, to a drastic change in western society structure.
Its already unfair to relate this to the pandemic. Actual pandemic wasnt more than 3 months. But that made a fog over the structural changes going on, and people still blame pandemic for this, instead of noticing that more and more, only few selected players in society are becoming omnipotent.
Amazon basically destroyed all physical commerce. There is really no point going to shopping centers to buy stuffs, given how fast is the delivey, how cheap its and how wide is the variety of things you have access.
Delivery food basically destroyed good amount of small/medium sized restaurants. Its slower but sure eventually we gonna have a one-only food store, amazon-like.
As food and store are in decay, so is the city. Less client, plus home-office reduces severely the economical viability for any business in the street. This leads to emptier streets, more dangerous, in a vicious cycle that more and more move the people out of those places. Then impacting also general services like dentists, clinics, etc.
But if you also reduces the small/medium sized commerce, thats a huge problem to employeement. Less work, less money, more people unemployeed, in an once again vicious cycle.
Yeah, I believe we are in a transition to a far worse state.
Darwin already said, nature is ruled by the law of the fittest. That means, people who can adapt to any changes in the environment will always have the edge regardless of what structural changes happen. But I believe, this maleability to adapt is restrit to a very small percentage of our population. Many will suffer if things keep going on like that.
The worst part is, like you said, most arent even aware of whats going on. For part of them, the culprit is the pandemic. And if this was true, supposelly we would return back to before.
But that is not the case. Pandemic already have nothing to do with our current society/life.