> because there isn't anything more valuable for that person to do

I've seen an interesting shift post-COVID where (remaining) ops workers are often more coordinators of / responsible for their area of responsibility.

Which is a distinction because in that sort of job, not having Task X leads directing into finding something else you can be doing to improve your area.

Sometimes it’s about the journey and not the destination.

The point being that the "I" is also flexible -- an existing employee fooling around to learn automation whenever they have downtime is much cheaper than hiring a consultant.

Sure, the automation is worse and delivered more slowly. But you can get automations from a lot of people in parallel, plus you're upskilling your workforce.