What is a plumber paid for? You tell him you'd like a sink installed somewhere and he installs it. He isn't paid more if the sink is used to wash the hands of surgeons operating on orphans or never used it all. He is paid on the basis of, you want a sink and he knows how to install them.
It seems to me that doing things on demand with no regard for purpose should be the domain of machines, not humans. Of course, robotics isn't yet advanced enough to allow us to meet that ideal in the physical world. But in the software world, the demand for programmers that merely crank out glue code, without understanding or caring about what it's for, should shrink, if it's not already.
I know why they are doing what they are doing, I'm just not paid for it. If I was paid by value produced rather than my skills I'd demand far greater control of the business, complete transparency and would refuse tasks that don't generate sufficient value. That just isn't the relationship most companies want, they would like to dictate what I work on and pay a flat rate for it. You can't have it both ways.
Sure, but if everyone was able to install a sink the price of getting a sink installed would fall considerably. That indicates to me that you are paid based on the rarity and difficulty in gaining the skill, not the value of the problem itself.
You don't get paid for solving the problem, you get paid for transforming the problem using software such that people become dependant on software to "solve" it. Now you can charge them for it. You can also insert software into places where no problems have been yet identified, make them dependant on it and then charge them for it.
This guy knows how business works. If everybody think hard enough, software is not needed in lots of situation. The market is all about forced solution, probably plus some network effect, social value yada yada that keep it alive.
> your example is daily infrastructure people already have
Of daily infrastructure people already have, because someone dared turn it into software?
> You only need a few of them.
I guess we can keep email, but we should strip all the software layer from waste management plants, or the archiving systems of national libraries and museums, or the operating systems that support the browsers we're typing this from, or the avionics from passenger planes, or whatever you decide is the right number of software applications.
> whatever you decide is the right number of software applications
You hit right on the nail, so I don't generally disagree with you.
This is how business works, there is no number! Consumerism works the same kind of way.
[Shifted-goal] Also I don't want to stop or reduce it either, I just want more quality of software, not some VC-pipedream-hype driven software.
> You don't get paid for solving the problem, you get paid for transforming the problem using software such that people become dependant on software to "solve" it
Yes, the entire software industry is akin to crack dealers.