Hypotheses: 1) prior to then, there were lots of people doing VB, but the supply was a bit larger than the demand, so employers didn't have to advertise on dice

Hypotheses: 1) prior to then, there were lots of people doing VB, but the supply was a bit larger than the demand, so employers didn't have to advertise on dice.com. Once supply dips ever so slightly below demand, you get a step function in how much you need to advertise 2) you need to advertise for VB devs once you have a VB dev make you a system, then your organization gets dependent on it, then that dev leaves. The comeback is due to the number of VB legacy systems whose original maintainer is now no longer available, and there's nobody else in the organization who knows VB. 3) Prior to '16, if you needed a VB dev you trained one in-house; it is/was a common self-taught language. Eventually, this stops providing enough candidates, or the idea of advertising on dice.com for a dev position becomes standard enough that you do it even for VB. I have no idea which (if any) of these are correct, just throwing them out there as ideas. I have never worked with VB, so I make no assertions as to the accuracy of the general attitude towards it that these hypotheses demonstrate.