In addition, the engineering skill required for writing basic desktop software is much lower than it used to be, while the skill required to write code for a ga

In addition, the engineering skill required for writing basic desktop software is much lower than it used to be, while the skill required to write code for a game engine, audio/video processing, low-level network stacks, or any of the other problems on your list is just as high as it used to be, if not higher. Back in the day, anyone writing even a simple desktop app needed to know about algorithmic complexity and low-level optimizations, or their code would be intolerably slow (if it even ran at all). Today, if all you’re developing is a simple productivity app, high-level abstractions have eliminated the need for such low-level knowledge, dramatically lowering the barrier of entry for developers, at the expense of software efficiency. In other words, if the problem you’re solving is inherently easy, it is easy to write (inefficient but fast enough) code to solve it. This used to not be the case: even easy problems required difficult code to solve. However, all of the problems on your list are inherently difficult and complex, and thus still require difficult and complex code to solve. The barrier of entry for developers remains high, ensuring that those who work on said problems still have thorough knowledge of how to write performant code.