The problem isn’t whether or not companies need us— it’s about how many of us they need (demand), and how many of us there are (supply), because that determines our value. Companies pay people what they’ll work for, not based on how much they contribute to the bottom line; in economics, paying more than you have to for anything, including labor, is the irrational path. A steady, high demand for software developers has kept salaries high because that’s the only way they could get capable people to work for them.
The higher-end of markets aren’t immune to this. As the demand for lower-level workers drops, people will upskill trying to move up rather than get lopped off. Since there are fewer positions the further up the hierarchy you get, you don’t need a huge increase in supply to affect demand. That’s when you start seeing the most experienced, highest-earning people getting shit-canned because someone is willing to do a good-enough version of their role for 2/3 their sizable salary.
This can all happen without a single entire role being completely automated out of existence.
Go for it. I got out of that ridiculous ouroboro of an industry years ago. That might be great for you, but surely you can’t imagine VC funding enough startups to save the software labor market? The tech workforce is giant. Do you think there are tens or hundreds of thousands of ways to make unique new software products where even a single digit percentage are commercially viable? Software isn’t fungible: it needs to solve specific problems that people have, and do it well enough to deal with the hassle of switching software.
This isn’t an individual problem— it’s an industry-wide problem.
(I pulled the 2/3 number out of a hat to illustrate the point. I put exactly zero analysis into that.)
> If what you describe happens (33% cut to salaries) then the bar for your own startup to be worth it is suddenly lower.
That sounds like a material reduction in quality of life. Running a startup seems like it would entail way more hours worked and way more pressure, even if you were making better money. IMHO, that's not a good trade off.
> Running a startup seems like it would entail way more hours worked and way more pressure, even if you were making better money.
It is also ignoring scalability issues in the sense that if a large number of people now working regular jobs in tech are forced down this path, the amount of competition among these startups would be astronomical which would result is downward pressure on both the ability to fundraise and the ability to generate revenue for your particular startup.
Impossible for me to believe each individual startup founder would find some profitable niche to fit into.
The higher-end of markets aren’t immune to this. As the demand for lower-level workers drops, people will upskill trying to move up rather than get lopped off. Since there are fewer positions the further up the hierarchy you get, you don’t need a huge increase in supply to affect demand. That’s when you start seeing the most experienced, highest-earning people getting shit-canned because someone is willing to do a good-enough version of their role for 2/3 their sizable salary.
This can all happen without a single entire role being completely automated out of existence.