Software and Plenty

The tools of software makers are freely available. It is as if a foundry was abandoned and left running with a supply of steel, awaiting the makers of anvils, hammers, I-beams, and ships. Free compilers are the tool-makers' tools.

And while other trades must be learned in college, programming is taught in high school -- and earlier! What's more, this training is subsidized!

And while other trades specialize and categorize, the lowliest hacker can rise to be the Next Bill Gates - or at least the next Linus Torvalds.

Software is inherently non-unique. Any uniqueness is simulated, as in Digital Rights Management. Even the decoding scheme for DVD encoding is available as a prime number.

This is unique in the history of mankind. Never before has there been a set of tools and raw material so plentiful, and as free.

And never again.

The parasites will create chips that cannot use free compilers. The parasites will create internet connections that require proprietary software. The parasites will take away the "free" high-school C++ courses.

The trade will die. In America.

As with the physical tradesmen, programmers will see their cost-of-living increase, so that they must work longer hours for the same pay. Competition with foreign workers will become fierce, and lower pay must become acceptable... or the programmers will starve.

This will take place over the next ten years, and at the end of it, Americans will still be flipping burgers on artificially inflated minimum wages, but they won't be sitting in front of keyboards, esteemed for their l33t skillz and paid the wages of a skilled tradesman.