I think we should talk more about the clear success of software engineering as a high-skill profession with virtually no gatekeeping — why & how that’s working, etc.
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Do you think it's because it's so easy to participate online anonymously and demonstrate skills? The Paul Graham adage to just make things people want applies to anyone and the proof is often in the product, or the OSS contributions, or whatever.
Yeah: (a) the skills can be learned online for free, (b) very knowledgeable communities provide fast feedback loops, (c) social rewards are readily available for building cool stuff at minimal cost; notably, building stuff people like develops a lot of peripheral skills
