I realized I don’t like to program practical things. Also, everything useful has been made. What else do we need to program? Most of our problems now stem not from lack of tech but from a lack of social will.
Everything useful has certainly not been made. There wouldn't be any jobs in software development if that was true, would there?
Myself, despite being really good at coding, I don't much like it. But I do like solving problems and coding is a particularly great tool for that. Imagine a toolbox that has every tool and the only bound is the time you're willing to put into using the tools.
Name one thing that hasn't already been done to such a degree that it wouldn't be worth the time for an individual to work on with their own resources.
> There wouldn't be any jobs in software development if that was true, would there?
If the economy was only about supply and demand, that might be sound. The economy, however, is not a closed thermodynamic system, but an open one. Marketers know they can create artificial demand by convincing people to buy or subscribe to things they don't actually need. Easy money from venture capital creates business opportunities that wouldn't otherwise be viable or sensible but can line people's pockets in the meantime. Human attention and relevance churns, so every year there's another version of essentially the same things that have already been made because eventually the old thing will go out of style. And finally, there's business owners and executives who simply don't know better, are living in the past, and think that they need to write more of their own software than they actually do.
To an extent, I agree with you, but I have a beef with our industry perpetuating the idea that we can all strike it rich. It's reminiscent of the narrative that everyone has a chance to can come to Hollywood and be a star; after all, there's tons of movies and shows that haven't been made yet. It's certainly not untrue, but it's not that simple. Someone who wants to build the next "thing", almost no matter the scale, will have competition with more resources and financial backing, and the likelihood that their app in particular will take off is very, very slim.
