alt Hacker NewsDude, it's labor. It is no coincidence that essentially every intricate form of architecture gave way to simplified forms at the exact same time that wages for trade workers were rapidly rising.
Hand placed parquet that took a master craftsman several weeks to lay disappeared. Intricate carvings upon otherwise utilitarian and common structures likewise.
Art Deco itself is a compromise with this creeping reality. Not fully modern minimalist but economically efficient in using flattened elements, prefabs and striaght accents for detailing.
When a trad person posts their diatribe online it is a simple tell. They know next to nothing about how the built world is actually created. And they don't understand how wages came to form the basis of respect for working people. The act of decrying the utilitarian transition is itself a form of disrespect via ignorance. Because what you are essentially saying is that your aesthetic preferences are more important than the time of expert laborers, whether you know it or not.
Counterpoint, a relative of mine works in a sector where he sees a lot of luxury villas (we're from Tuscany, so it's full of wealthy oligarchs on the coast). I've seen some of the photos and I'd say none of them look good to me, they're just modernist regular shaped blocks of something that makes a house, and inside the kitchiest decorations possible just to flaunt money. And yet, they could afford to pay for any style they wanted