[danso]

Maybe that would be the case in other professions...but as a coder, I would LOVE to have more people involved in it. I think programming is one of those areas in which a rising tide lifts all boats.

I find that most of my time is either dumbing things down (i.e. printing the output of a relational database into a flat spreadsheet or worse, a PDF) for those who barely understand basic Excel or attempting to parse such dumbed-down information from other systems. If it were status quo in this world to understand the concept of delimitation and meta-data, my ability to create even more compelling applications, visualizations, and analyses would be greatly multiplied.

[ZoltonVonMises]

I definitely understand. I'm just looking at it from a purely economical perspective. Sure, as the mass's technical prowess goes up, my ability to create cool things also goes up, but as the mass's technical prowess goes up, the earning potential in programming goes down.

Any time a resource becomes less scarce, it's value drops.

[danso]

Sure, though I'd argue that maybe you're too shortsighted. If you were one of the few literate people at the time of Gutenberg, you might have a good start on everyone else...yet if that kind of literacy ratio never improved within a generation, I'd argue that you might have ended up poorer. Especially if you had the hankering to be more than just a reader...few literate people means few reasons to write books/pamphlets.

[prophetjohn]

But we're not writing code for it to be read by other programmers. We're writing code for what it does when it's executed. More programmers does not make a greater market for programmers. At least not for that reason.

[steder]

I know where you're coming from but I think that if more people have a basic understanding of programming then more people will be able to recognize the value of good programmers. Assuming you've got the talent and experience I'm thinking your market rate may actually go up significantly. People have a hard time appreciating (and paying for) work they don't understand.

[gexla]

The more "makers" on this planet the better. Software moves us further. We need more hands to pitch in on the effort.