Sure, I agree with all of that. But spamming has to have a certain level of return in order to do it. There must be a tangible level of demand out there. Like I

Sure, I agree with all of that. But spamming has to have a certain level of return in order to do it. There must be a tangible level of demand out there. Like I said in my first post, when I talk to people in other industries (medical, journalism, electrical engineering, etc), getting spammed by recruiters is utterly unheard of. I only have anecdotal evidence, but so does every one else in this thread. Personally I have been receiving emails from the same recruiters in some instances for years. I'm not a stand out developer. I also know, again anecdotally, that when we open a developer rec at my current company, it can take a very long time to fill. My gut says there is a shortage. How much of one is very hard to determine and how artificial the shortage is due to generally poor hiring practices, low salaries, or other factors is also hard to determine. But I find it very hard to swallow the idea there is no developer shortage at all, which is what sparked this thread.