Regardless of how much better (or not) Autopilot is than manual driving, this comment is a very good example of the point GP was trying to make. If you get a taste for 100k cars because you convinced yourself you can no longer live without Autopilot, you will now need to find that much more income to pay for all the cars. That is money that could also have been spent "sacrificing salary" so you could have more interesting work, take time for a sabbatical or retire earlier.
I know people who have far more money sitting in their driveways (or garage, though having a garage clear enough for cars is a weird rarity anymore) than our entire property, including house, is worth. They claim it's worth it, and I'm not going to argue, but I could quite literally retire on the value of their house and car fleet. When I met most of them a decade or so ago, they were in the similar boat as me, vehicle/salary/etc-wise. They just inflated their lifestyles as their incomes rose, I fought that (and married someone who is far better than me at asking "... but why?" questions about anything nonsensical I suggest). I'm not retired, but that's halfway because I enjoy my work and halfway because I have plenty of things I can do that involve wads of cash at various points (the next one is buying a backhoe for a couple years of work on a greenhouse - yes, it makes sense to buy an old one, run it for a few years, and sell it, because they hold value very well at the age I'm looking for - it's a couple year rental for the cost of maintenance and maybe a set of tires).
My point is simply that if you can avoid those traps, you really don't have to worry about "How do I be a tech worker in my 50s and 60s," because you've either retired, or are near enough to retirement that you don't have to earn $500k/yr to support your lifestyle. It's a trap. There is no income so large you can't spend more than it.
