Having done a fair share of reverse engineering in my time, I think the reason is that it's boring. Sure, at first it's fun: it's all about constantly solving n

Having done a fair share of reverse engineering in my time, I think the reason is that it's boring. Sure, at first it's fun: it's all about constantly solving new puzzles. But eventually you realize you're in a maze of twisty passages, all different. The challenges are artificial and meaningless and will continue forever as long as pointless incompatibility is incentivized. On the one hand, the people who can reverse engineer stuff got too good: either they got tired of it, or they're getting paid big bucks to do it professionally. On the other, (perhaps this is jaded) new programmers are just learning scripting/web technologies and never peel back the covers of how the system actually works. Perhaps reverse engineering proprietary products should be a mandatory tour of duty for young programmers, like military service in some countries. :)