I think the business case for employer or employee is interesting.
For the employer, they are always driving to hire employees with lower ability. It drives labor costs down as it expands the labor supply - “everyone” can dig ditches, not everyone can be a rocket scientist.
As a designer, I have played directly into this by designing ease of use into products. 20 years ago, you needed a PhD to sequence genes. I have designed that ability out of the process. Now you need a 2-week course to run a machine that will sequence genes. There is no doubt that technology has devalued labor.
The perspective of the employee is different. What I don’t care for in the article you posted is the position that value for the employee is purely monetized. For technology devaluing labor, I think you can make the case that value is based on money/cost. I don’t think you can make the case for people.
It is simply because doing what you “love” has value. I can’t give you an exact monetary value of “love”, but there is no doubt it is there and you can substitute that love of doing something for money. In the first world, it is easier to take advantage of that. Not everyone wants a 10,000 sq ft McMansion with a Ferrari in the driveway. Personally, I would take 3 weeks of unpaid vacation if I could but my company does not allow it. You can use the resources available to you to suit your own needs.
So whether a person comes from “privilege” or they don’t need all of the trappings offered in the world, the outright bashing the author of that articles does of working for love is at best an extremely narrow point of view or at worst just plain misinformed.
The author doesn’t even get into how people are motivated. Some are motivated by extrinsic rewards like money while others are motivated to the best of their ability by intrinsic values like doing the job itself. Most research shows that working for extrinsic rewards leads to burnout and lower performance, but that is for another thread. Again, I think bashing a practice with a limited point of view serves no purpose.