To be fair, that did improve things for the average person, and by a staggering amount.

The vast majority of people working before the industrial revolution were lowly paid agricultural workers who had enormous instability in employment. Employment was also typically very seasonal, and very hard work.

That's before we even get into things like stuff being made cheaper, books being widely available, transport being opened up, medical knowledge skyrocketing, famines going from regular occurrence to rare occurrence, etc as a result of the industrial revolution.

We had been on a constant trajectory of everyone getting wealthier up until the late 1970s where afterwards we saw a sharp rise in inequality, a trend that hasn't stopped. (Thatcher and her other shithead twin Reagan?)

In the mid 70s, the top 1% owned 19.9% of wealth. Now that figure is around 53%.