“Nature abhors a vacuum” - if there is room for something, something will find that room and take it. This is a fact of science. Literal vacuums are destroyed naturally when the thing that created them stops. If a resource in an ecosystem is made abundant due to its natural consumer leaving, a new natural consumer will come.
In business, gaps in the marketplace will not remain gaps once they are noticed. Gaps are filled, opportunities are exploited. If the firm that is filling a gap lapses and the gap is truly a gap, a new firm will rise to take the place of the failed firm to fill the gap.
Your schedule and your inbox also abhor a vacuum. If you increase your productivity and finish 40 hours of work in 8 hours, that does NOT mean you will suddenly have 32 hours of leisure. People will notice you’re available and put more on your plate. YOU will tend to find new things that will fill in these empty spaces. Left to your own devices, you will replace any “solved” obligation with some brand-new obligation. This is partly due to The Luxury Trap or the Diderot Effect, but also part of human biology. We self-seek a homeostasis, and that homeostasic set point CANNOT be “fully satisfied”, it’s just not how we evolved to exist.
Source
- myself