The "pleasure of making things that are useful to other people" only happens if you project isn't cancelled and actually gets used. It also doesn't happen if y

The "pleasure of making things that are useful to other people" only happens if you project isn't cancelled and actually gets used. It also doesn't happen if you're developing internal software that other people will be forced to use. It all gets decided by your bosses and their bosses, without any of the hands-on people (developers and users) having any say in the what and the how. And so you end up having to watch how bad decisions and faulty prioritizations from above ruin the users' morale, sanity, wrists and lives. And your empathy will do the same to you. I know, I know, this isn't true for everyone, but think of how much better and cheaper technology could be if techies and users talked directly instead of through two layers of middlemen. Techies don't need middlemen to talk to users, unless the users are represented by middlemen.