I have never assumed that the software itself held the core value. The value comes from my trusted name, my continued support, and other things I do for the env

I have never assumed that the software itself held the core value. The value comes from my trusted name, my continued support, and other things I do for the environment of the software. This is a mistake a lot of coders make. The software does have value. It's the completed project that solves a problem that has value. If the project is a success and meets the needs of the users, it often matters little who the coder was who built it. The value comes from automating processes, simplifying tasks, and enabling collaboration -- all of those have value regardless of you. Just like a bookshelf has value without the IKEA. Is hacker news great because pg wrote it and can maintain it? Maybe it's a better community because he is around, but it matters little that he typed the keys to make the loops. What matters is that the software has been written and we can use it to communicate. The existence of the software is the value. Of course it takes a certain skill to get a project to completion. That has value up front, but once the project is done, they may not need you anymore -- the software is what they wanted. The same is true of everything else. Is it the furniture maker that is important -- or the table? Is it the running shoe that is important -- or the nike swoosh? Is it the water that is important, or the bottler? You could argue there is a certain level of quality associated with a coder, maybe you, but that quality -- again -- is independent of the coder who wrote the lines of code. If the code is exactly the same, doesn't matter if you wrote it or someone else did. To your other points: Have you ever tried unobfuscating code? It's really hard. Just try unminimizing javascript. It's really hard. It's so hard, you may be better off just rewriting it. Obfuscation does wrap code in a magic, specially sealed black box. That's exactly what obfuscation does. It reduces code to a jumble of wires you don't know where go, encrypted strings, for loops that do maybe nothing or something extra special. Can it be unobfuscated -- yes, but probably not by the client. If you can't write code, you can't unobfuscate it. PHP, while interpreted, can still be obfuscated. People don't really care about the fact that you can create software. They won't pay you for that ability. They will pay you if you create some software for them, but they won't pay you just because you can. Lots of people can, but will they?