I come from the perspective of a programmer, not an engineer, but I think many things still apply. > Do software engineers really have leverage? I would say y

I come from the perspective of a programmer, not an engineer, but I think many things still apply. > Do software engineers really have leverage? I would say yes the sense of real impact, but only somewhat in the sense of actual power within the given economic system. A more extreme example would be scientists who work on foundational science. They have been discovering things that are of such high impact that they transform the way we live. Such scientists are typically (not exclusively) well off. But they don't inhabit the most powerful places in our societal hierarchy at all, nor are they compensated in terms of their real world impact. One reason might be that these people are intrinsically motivated, they simply don't seek that power or leverage. > How could we increase our leverage? By not selling our labor and instead (partially) owning our products and services or at least by (collective) bargaining. The smallest but still impactful thing we can do is to not accept employments or clients that don't value our craft. There are also many engineering focused companies that eventually 'sold out'. Their power structure changes, their engineers lose agency and so on. > Why don't we choose to use our rare skills for our own profit (as everyone else does), and instead many of us give away immense value (and power/leverage) by open sourcing our work? Because the positive impact of open source software can be much greater. Some projects are simply not fit to be sold on a market, but still have possibly immense value. This doesn't mean they cannot or will not be compensated. Foundations, donations and so on are used for that. Many things simply cannot work this way, because they are based on being open and free. Wikipedia or Linux wouldn't be what they are otherwise.