How much automation is good automation?

Automation is wonderful, it reduced the need for people to work, and that in turn lets more people pursue their true interests, without having to worry about doing unpleasant tasks to simply survive. But all machines for automation take investment, time and resources. And, reasonable enough, you'd like some sort of return on your investment. And the best way to generate a return on your investment of automation equipment is to use it, to produce whatever it is that it produces. And sometimes that leads to an overproduction of certain good, worse when combined with using cheap inputs to further increase your rate of return. A proliferation of junk just good enough to pass a quick glance but too low quality to be of any long term use.

So, what's the solution? Banning or not using automation is nonsense, we want machines doing our work for us. Two things come to mind. First, shifting our focus from 'more' to 'better'. Not necessarily a call to consume less, but to consume higher quality. The only way to do that of course is to make high-quality cheaper, but that's a different matter. Items like good, life-time warranties should be the norm.

The second should be a greater investment of automation that is flexible. A machine that produces a million rubber ducks (that don't float) does reduce human effort, but is of limited utility, whereas a 3D printer is significantly more flexible, and can also output not only rubber ducks, but other items as well.

Unfortunately, you can only pick two of the following: fast, cheap, good. And people time, and time again, choose fast and cheap, and are left wondering why everything they own is junk. That's not entirely their fault, they are, after all, imbued with constant screaming of "my product is the best". Best being a vague marketing term with no real meaning or substance.

I'm not sure this is a problem that you can government your way out of. The people who have been selling you pennies worth of product for a dollar have all the money to buy government now. I'm not sure that you can have a cultural shift either at this point, so many people's dollars have been sucked away that they cannot afford quality anymore. The only real solution is to make high-quality cheaper, and I'm not entirely sure how to achieve that.