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I suspect that the jobs are just changing, without a significant impact on wages, at least for the average Joe. Consider this analogy: If everybody has to re-invent the wheel, you have to put all your resources toward getting someone to invent the wheel for you, so you can compete with all the other businesses using wheels. Once everybody can re-use an existing wheel, you can aim higher, and put the same amount of resources toward getting someone to combine existing wheels and other parts to make something much more efficient and tailored to your business. And you need to do this to compete, because it's what everyone else is doing now, and a simple wheel just wont cut it. So yes, someone with the skills required to invent the wheel becomes less in demand, but I would argue that someone who can turn existing parts into a working and customized whole requires just as much, if different, skills, with a roughly equal supply and demand ratio, thus able to demand a similar wage. My argument that it requires as much skill stems from what others have pointed out. There may be a tool for everything, but it takes a lot of experience and ability to find an acceptable tool for each task amid a sea of tools of varying use, quality, documentation, etc. And it is rare that you can get maximum business efficiency from something cold off the shelf, without someone skilled modifying, configuring, tweaking, combining, etc. |