While in general we've become more efficient, almost every historic human activity has a strong following of artisans who preserve the old ways as a hobby/entertainment. They are becoming more popular than ever given youtube and the fact that people have more free time to enjoy things like that.
I'm not sure what he considers modern technology, but I'd say almost every piece of major technology has been a total phenomenon for civilization, from fire to cave paintings, written word, printing press.
Our goal should be to smooth out technology's disruptions to civilization and society rather than prevent technological progress.
Ellus wrote about "a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity"
Preserving old ways is a tiny fraction of human activity, and those preserved 'old ways' are themselves a tiny fraction of all 'old ways'. Very few people are doing so as their main (professional) activity.
Even those preserving some old way often either say that it offers various advantages (i.e. it is 'more efficient' upon the set of criteria they chose), or (for a IMHO very minute fraction of them) are into some form of challenge expressed as 'what can I achieve, given a very limited set of resources?'... which also is a quest for efficiency (in a constrained environment).
The central thesis is that technique is 'autonomous' (has it own dynamics), has a major influence on any society using it, and that there is nothing we can do to 'smooth out' this influence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul#On_technique