I have a theory that the service economy metastasized so greatly in the second half of the twentieth century because the new middle class, created through the implementation of social democratic policies throughout the West, wanted to feel what it's like to have the convenience of being waited on that used to be the exclusive domain of the upper class.
Then in the past few decades, the decision was made to offshore production and replace these jobs with service jobs, because the upper middle class that arose after the Thatcher/Reagan Revolution wanted even more to feel like little lords and ladies.
In other words, there is a trend toward increasing servility of the masses toward the top 20% or so: the upper middle and upper classes. Projected out generations or centuries, this trend is probably how a once “free” people turns into legally bound serfs obligated to serve a legally recognized class of masters and mistresses.
The driving force in the transition is some people's yearning to lord over others, deemed inferior, and gain an ego boost from having others do their bidding. The acquisition of wealth, for many, is not about well-being and security, but about power over others. In Hegelian terms, people seek a kind of recognition that cannot be gained from owning inanimate objects, but rather must come from other people, and the primitive version of this recognition comes from lording over an inferior who must curtail one's own will to that of the master.
An increasingly service-oriented economy leads us down the road to servility. As Marx would argue, production, not service, is central to progress.