> We have managed to be largely blind to this because the amount of work that's available to programmers has expanded hugely to compensate for increased product

> We have managed to be largely blind to this because the amount of work that's available to programmers has expanded hugely to compensate for increased productivity - plus our tools aren't quite as nice as the hypothetical I described. I don't know if 'blind' is the right word since this topic gets discussed on the regular both here on HN as well as on more general programming forums like reddit. Anyhow, I certainly agree that programming as a career the way we know it today is predicated on the notion that the potential scope of work available continues to increase. Why wouldn't it, though? IMO we've barely begun scratching the surface of what's possible with computation technology. Will productivity really outpace the amount of available work by that much, that fast? Seems weird, but I'm no futurist so maybe I'm just being naive.