have a hard time believing that selling (tens of?) thousands of programming reference books brought in 10-20x salaries or that entire teams would be following

have a hard time believing that selling (tens of?) thousands of programming reference books brought in 10-20x salaries or that entire teams would be following a pied piper leading to such a hellaciously complicated design, contrived to induce desperate reference buying?? It’s a funny thought but this is a fantasy