So I'm asking, what is the escape hatch? Do we all become plumbers? Anyone have a plan?
The closest comparison to what’s happening today is writing. In olden times a few in the professional class could write. It was not a common skill. Now everyone can write. There are technically more “jobs that involve writing” and writing skills CAN help you succeed. But very few people have a job just writing.
What people do have are domain specific jobs where a writing skill is more useful. Journalism, Industry analyst, etc.
The future won’t be some small set of software engineers focused only on functional code, it’ll be domain-knowledgeable people that plan out domain solutions, write, code, all in one role.
Dedicated coders were somewhat necessary to wrangle the tech stack (which itself grew more complex to accommodate more devs, a positive feedback which nearly spun out of control in late 2010s). But now? A single coder with domain knowledge has a shot at wrangling their own tech stack as a part time job, the rest of the time focussed on IRL value. This is the future I want.
I've always thought about a career in welding. It's a real job that requires a lot of real skills and can be quite lucrative if you're qualified enough. There are a lot of different directions, from welding custom exhausts for cars to industrial underwater welding. It sounds exciting to me.