Not all of the world's software is consumer-oriented. Programmers could still work on contract, writing software for business customers who wouldn't really both

Not all of the world's software is consumer-oriented. Programmers could still work on contract, writing software for business customers who wouldn't really bother with piracy. For a concrete example, there are plenty of companies right now paying developers to work on LLVM (which is UIUC-licensed, so practically free for everyone); those people still get paid well. As long as you write single-user software (or server-side software), you don't need copyright as much. Arguably, we're moving away from the shrink-wrapped copyrighted software model (with the exception of App Stores). Education might be regulated by government, but does that really have a positive impact? A MIT degree isn't valuable because government says so, it's valuable because it's from MIT (which is a private university with a lot of great professors and students). The value of education is not granted by government.