[syllogism]

Software to date has been a [Jevons good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox). Demand for software has been constrained by the cost efficiency and risk of software projects. Productivity improvements in software engineering have resulted in higher demand for software, not less, because each improvement in productivity unblocks more of the backlog of projects that weren't cost effective before.

There's no law of nature that says this has to continue forever, but it's a trend that's been with us since the birth of the industry. You don't need to look at AI tools or methodoligies or whatever. We have code reuse! Productivity has obviously improved, it's just that there's also an arms race between software products in UI complexity, features, etc.

If you don't keep improving how efficiently you can ship value, your work will indeed be devalued. It could be that the economics shift such that pretty much all programming work gets paid less, it could be that if you're good and diligent you do even better than before. I don't know.

What I do know is that whichever way the economics shake out, it's morally neutral. It sounds like the author of this post leans into a labor theory of value, and if you buy into that, well...You end up with some pretty confused and contradictory ideas. They position software as a "craft" that's valuable in itself. It's nonsense. People have shit to do and things they want. It's up to us to make ourselves useful. This isn't performance art.