[jstewartmobile]

Between very-very large scale integration, walled-garden consumer devices, and the everyday nature of distributed computing, IT is a dead man walking.

When each compute node becomes essentially a disposable quantity, what does that do to the value of the people who service them?

People will say "What about networking?", as though locality makes a difference here. I've seen so many local network deployments where a guy in India configures the switch and firewall, then mails them over here and pays a local guy who is practically illiterate $75 for half a day's work to mount and plug everything in. They may have to go back-and-forth for several attempts since local guy is a hot mess. Even so, at $75 a pop the economics still work out.

[user5994461]

I've seen that at big brand name. The network was dead multiple times every week for entire hours. It's so terrible.

There would be a dozen contractors in the room. They discuss who works on what in the morning, then the network is down and noone can do anything for half the day.

[jstewartmobile]

Most megacorps don't seem to care. IT by goon squad has been standard operating procedure for almost a decade now.