Comment by Apocryphon

They're going to hit diminishing returns through outsourcing eventually, whether code quality, language/cultural differences, or the difficulty in wrangling timezones. Though I've heard that there's been more offshoring to Latin America these days so perhaps that addresses some of the issue.

And maybe if programmers organized they could try to lobby for some of the protections that those other professions enjoy. As it stands now there's absolutely nothing pushing for the profession in any capacity, besides like IEEE/ACM op-eds.