>...pushing the $ value of their craft down to $0. This isn't remotely true. Sure, the value of a copy of software might become $0. But I'm not a software copy

>...pushing the $ value of their craft down to $0. This isn't remotely true. Sure, the value of a copy of software might become $0. But I'm not a software copyist! I'm a programmer. (Well, sort of :P.) I do not get paid to give people copies of my software--I get paid to write the software. There is a difference! This just means that I will not be able to make money writing software to do something somebody else has already done. After all, why pay me when they can just have a copy of the existing program? But this is a good thing! After all, since the solution already exists, it would be a waste of resources to replicate it. Instead, I would be relegated to writing software that is novel. A horrible thought indeed. Essentially, if some business needs a program to do something, and that program does not exist (which is a rather common occurrence) they would have to hire programmers to write it. Even if it did exist, they would have to hire programmers to integrate it, add features and fix bugs. And those programmers would be more effective because they would have access to a great software commons of all the software ever written--"don't repeat yourself" would become "don't repeat anyone". I wonder if you're going to be making the same arguments when automatic programming comes around. After all, technology like that also pushes the value of your "craft" down to $0!