Ikea is easy to make fun of, but it's really done a lot of interesting work. Tim Harford lists the Billy Bookcase as one of the 50 inventions that shape the modern economy: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38747485
We might have known that, but I didn't know that they could be manufactured at scale and then assembled by the lowest common denominator while maintaining acceptable quality.
I thought that these techniques were stuck in my father's woodshop.
I wonder if Ikea helps enable geographic mobility: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/03/10/does-ikea-enable-mobility