Specialization is the biggest cause of knowledge outsourcing. It's how we get cryptographers, surgeons, economists, physicists, mechanics, pilots, engineers, and every other position that requires a high time cost to get skilled in.

It is the backbone of efficient economies but it also created a feedback loop that creates further specialization and limitation on how we can perceive things. As we specialize further to better compete we also lose that time that could be used anywhere else, limiting what we can focus on. A mechanic and a doctor are different types of repair but how many people can really learn both? And if someone does learn both would they have time to pay attention to electronics?

This behaviour allowed us to create quite efficient, but wasteful, economies and the success itself has consequences.

It's not a paradox to say actions have equal and opposite reactions; a pretty stable law of physics and an important concept in many religions and philosophies.

Though I agree the actions of the powerful usually seem to boil down to expanding and keeping their power. Electronics rarely improve or innovate now so the two common strategies are planned obsolescence and new "cool" looks, like the fashion and vehicle industries. Planned obsolescence has been one of the older behaviours to bleed people of their well earned wealth faster. It becomes the primary strategy when real improvement becomes prohibitively costly from investments diminishing returns.