“Progress” is one of those words of variable meaning, that changes depending upon whom the speaker of the term might be.
In its most basic meaning, progress means merely moving from one position or location to another. But with a shift in the accent upon the syllables, the whole range of meaning shifts, into which there were old, “inefficient” ways of doing things, upon which the “inefficient” ways are discarded, with a new “faster” way instituted in its place. Because the “faster” way was thought up by really SMART people (another term that is highly flexible), why, it cannot be then changed back, doncha see.
Except by the time they are done with all the tinkering, the “new, faster” way turns out to look a lot like the old, inefficient way. But along the way, a lot of tears, pain, money and time were frittered away or fell into waste.
That post brings back memories of when I worked on copiers and printing equipment decades ago. My employer came up with new systems to “automate” the process for short run offset printing on their equipment. It was supposed to greatly reduce the skills needed to operate the equipment. In the end it only meant that the operators needed even more skills to try to keep the new systems from going awry. They even changed the name of one new feature, repacing the word “automatic” with the word “electronic” because they finally had to admit it was not really automatic and in fact required a SKILLED operator to perform daiy cleaning and adjustment to keep it working. Even with the best operator downtime was much higher than with the old system and productivity was really no higher, probably lower in fact. Interestingly this was a company which had for a long, long time been an industry leader but in the end they seemed to be flailing about and going for progress for the sake of progress whether there was anything real about the so called progress or not. They spent a huge amount on one new product introduction which belonged in an old Rube Goldberg newspaper cartoon. Those who had to install it and try to maintain it took one look and groaned. There was literally no way to make the monster work through a single eight hour shift without trouble and no one could figure out why the management ever imagined it could be made to work. That machine was the mechanical equivalent of Obamacare.