I never worked on dish washing products back in my day, I did spend some time working on laundry products. Of course, we learned some about other stuff. Back when, Cascade was mostly "builder" with very very little surfactant, as bubbles in a DW were very bad for the pump. We used a phosphate builder, and today I think they are all zero P, I don't know what they use. I've noticed the stuff often doesn't work that well. The wife likes the pod thingees, and they sometimes don't dissolve, I told her to run the hot water until it got got before starting the DW.
Phosphate is a magical cleaning ingredient, specifically tripolyphosphate. It apparently is bad for something.