One, like they said that’s not what they meant. Two, work is only goals-based to a point. If I finish my job early then almost in almost any office I don’t get to go home early. I used to get my shit done in half the day and, because I asked and no one would give me more(even when I identified issues I could fix), I would spend the other four hours watching Youtube or browsing the internet.

The only reward for doing your work faster is getting more work. My roommate was able to move to a four day work-week but had to do so because of burnout and even though they get their shit done the company still only agreed if they could reduce their salary by 20%.

Automation has also already been here for some time in many forms. Our productivity is higher than it’s ever been thanks to so many wonderful innovations and new technologies and yet we still only have two short days to have a weekend and still have to force our way through an 8hr workday even though every study shows that we cannot be consistently productive on that schedule.

I don't mean a literal work output "quota", that's what I meant with layers of abstraction. A better question to ask yourself is how many Americans live paycheck to paycheck? The expensive nature of the modern world, the difficulty in being paid well enough to achieve not just stability but some personal forward progress - getting the resources for these is what I mean about needing to hit a "quota".

What proportion of Americans are unable to hit the quota, described this way? What are the consequences, both to them and to wider society? Pretty bad situation, reminds me of just more complicated/obfuscated, "fuzzier" feudalism.