I see what you're saying but I am also talking about how computers originally saved humans time and that the OP seems to now be slaving away to save the CPU time. Doesn't that seem a little backwards?

If we're talking about micro-seconds of difference, the trade-off doesn't seem worth it. Even on a mass scale where this is somehow adopted, nobody is going to notice the difference. Maybe if this were in something like eCommerce and web browing where the lag translates to profit lost? Or perhaps game engines?

IDK, I just consider humans time more precious than a slow package (that already runs blazingly fast on a CPU that it barely matters.)

Longer waiting times can decrease productivity a lot more than just the runtime increase. If a program takes long enough that the user switches context mentally, or goes to get another coffee or looks at a few posts on social media that now means far more wasted time. Humans are not robots and won’t just keep staring at the screen.

Also a lot of simple optimizations could save seconds or minutes in the lives of millions of people, and across multiple devices/programs that adds up. Microsoft once sped up the booting process of their consoles by 5 seconds, by simply making the boot animation shorter by 5 seconds. Those consoles were sold to millions of people and it took MS 8 years or so to make the fix. That’s many lifetimes wasted once you add it all up.