"Knowledge work" is mostly bullshit.

I can't speak to every context or exception, but in my experience, "knowledge work" often serves as a jobs program for privileged bullshit artists.

These people will be making like 200k to do 11 hours of work per week.

The trope they always fall back on is that anyone criticizing them is some dinosaur who only understands production in terms of "how many widgets were produced". They also suggest that while it may look like they have a lot of downtime, they are really brainstorming and weighing the pros and cons of various brilliant concepts and decisions that will allegedly save their company millions.

My guess is that in reality, most of the decisions made are based on easy-to-research info or well-established precedents. Rather than the "knowledge worker" being asked to make a call on some completely uncharted territory that isn't intuitive at all.

If you really possess so much knowledge that it's worth paying you like 250k to work a few hours a week, then why haven't you started your own business? It would be different if it was an industry leader who got to be like 55 and wanted to take on a reduced role with less risk. But I feel like these are often jobs for nepo-babies who really haven't established expertise outside of like a college degree and internship.