1. The premise that everyone is benefiting is false. A tremendous amount of people are in industries that are shuttered, communities that are withering, locations that are in decline, or otherwise not 'getting better'.

2. The proper basis for comparison for the iterative generation of wealth and productivity isn't the past, it's the reasonable alternatives at the same time in development.

Imagine you and I start with 100 coins each.

In Scenario A, I take 30 of your coins. Then we fight each other and fritter away 10 coins each. Then our respective coin volume doubles. I end up with 240 coins. You end up with 120. We're both better off than in the past. In total, we have 360 coins.

In Scenario B, I steal all your coins. Without any coins, you can't fight me, so neither of us loses any further coins. Our coin volume doubles. I end up with 400 coins.

In Scenario C, I don't steal your coins and because we're not busy fighting each other, no losses occur. We both end up with 200 coins. In total we have 400 coins.

I think the lesson here is self evident, and that's without raising the fact that growth slows and societies collapse due to wealth disparities. If the simple thought experiment isn't enough and you'd like something a bit more involved, read up on the history and philosophy surrounding our transition away from the feudal system. Our distaste of titled hereditary privilege was very well deserved.

there's just way more people too

People are better off partly because of the 1%. The system that allows some too gain in excess also allows all to flourish.

I live in a former communist country... holy fuck is that hard to explain to some people. Back then, everybody was poor, and some party members were less poor. Now, everybody has a lot more compared to then, but because someone else has even more than that (huge house, a bmw,...), they blame capitalism. They literally stood in line to buy cabbages, and now they complain that strawberries are expensive (in december!).

Only thing worse ae the pensioners, who complain that there's "too much choice" in the stores... how they used to have one chocolate (which didn't have enough cocoa to actually be a chocolate), and now theres 3/4 of an aisle of just chocolates... the chocolate they used to buy is still there, but it's shitty compared to other stuff, then they buy a milka and complain that Lindt is too expensive...

That is so naieve as to be probably a troll?

The rules were changed, removing limits on sizes of banks and lenders, interest rates, how much the boss can skim, treatment of pension funds and on and on and on. All in the interest of, those with money get more money. To the point they have almost all the money.

It's irrelevant how much cash they have on hand. They own the economy, lock stock and barrel. The rest of us can only hope for a small stream to cover our expenses and little else.

This has been covered by literally thousands of articles. I suggest reading something, anything on the subject.