I think your conclusion is correct, but some of your examples are not (typically) freelancers. the auto shop might bill you $60-80 an hour for the mechanic's ti

I think your conclusion is correct, but some of your examples are not (typically) freelancers. the auto shop might bill you $60-80 an hour for the mechanic's time, but they're paying the person a lot less. same for the barber. I don't worry too much about competition offshore. the timezone issue alone poses a significant barrier to highly collaborative work. I don't think the concern about domestic competition can be so easily dismissed though. starting salary for someone with a BS in computer science is considerably higher than pretty much any other undergrad degree. when you think about it, the barrier to entry is really not that high. I don't doubt that specialists and experienced engineers will continue to command high salaries, but I do wonder how long people will keep getting $80k+ straight out of college to develop CRUD apps. over time, I feel like salaries for non-interdisciplinary CS majors will have to converge to that of the other STEM majors.