There's also the pessimistic view that we will actually lose progress and regress over time. Jonathan Blow has an interesting talk on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk
In the micro sense we see this all day every day. Restaurants start good but aim for max profit and become garbage. Apps/websites start great then keep adding cruft while removing features. Capitalism. Housing. All we do is advance to regress and repeat ourselves over and over.
its incentives and check and balances nothing more