Just my thought after reading the OP... Writing a program used to be an activity for mostly introverts. But today, programming are becoming more social and ope

Just my thought after reading the OP... Writing a program used to be an activity for mostly introverts. But today, programming are becoming more social and open, and a lot of "extrovert" things are happening (especially in GitHub and others). There are many beginners today who want to be a programmer in the same reason why many people who want to be a rock star: to get noticed. In this situation, it becomes a kind of competition; People start gaming the system. But it only becomes a problem when you're in the same competition with others. There are still people, I hope, who just follow their passion and inner aesthetics and keep producing ever strange software (TempleOS comes to mind, I guess), just like music and other forms of arts. Overall, I don't think the current trend is that much concerning. There will be the Nickelback of Open source (I don't really know the band well but I keep hearing their music being very generic while they're making a lot of money), but we should keep searching and appreciating small artists. It can be balanced.