What's the difference between replace sth with and replace sth by
I think both meanings are same on the title, but I don't know when I use "with" or "by".

Here are two examples.
-Beef was the most popular product which was replaced by chicken in around 1990.
-The factory replaced most of its workers with robots.

These examples are ok with either ''with'' or ''by''?
Or if it is not, please teach me how to distinguish these two.
Thank you :)

Question

What's the difference between replace sth  with and replace sth by
I think both meanings are same on the title, but I don't know when I use "with" or "by".

Here are two examples.
-Beef was the most popular product which was replaced by chicken in around 1990.
-The factory replaced most of its workers with robots.

These examples are ok with either ''with'' or ''by''?
Or if it is not, please teach me how to distinguish these two.
Thank you :)

Answer

The second is straightforward - to keep the same meaning you can only use with, if you use by here the meaning would be that robots came to the factory and replaced the workers with something else, physically removing and replacing the workers.

In the first only ‘by’ sounds right to me but I’m not sure why. I think it is because to say replaced ‘with’ chicken would carry the meaning that the beef was removed altogether, was substituted with chicken, whereas to say it was replaced ‘by’ implies that beef is still a popular product, although no longer the most popular.