Either you're in a Cost Center or a Profit Center. As nearly all day-to-day programming is automation of some kind, costs are cut by eliminating menial labor. R

Either you're in a Cost Center or a Profit Center. As nearly all day-to-day programming is automation of some kind, costs are cut by eliminating menial labor. Revenues are increased by selling that automation to customers and clients. The sad sorry truth: your software puts people--somewhere--out of a job, thus saving money for that person's employer/customer. That's your value proposition. Now of course, the economy on the whole is not a zero-sum game. But you don't see that at the micro-economic level. It is rare indeed that a programmer creates new jobs without negative consequences somewhere else in the world...