Comment by OkayPhysicist

> high-level languages depressed wages by opening up programming to tens of millions of people who could never grok assembly.

While I agree with your thesis, I don't think your example actually happened. From my experience teaching CS, the fundamental skill when it comes to programming a computer is algorithmic reasoning, that is, the ability to split a task into subtasks until you reach base tools that you exist in your toolbox. Whether those base tools are MOV or document.getElementById() is largely immaterial, IMO. Obviously it's quicker, and easier, for us to not have to drill all the way down to assembly all the time, but if you have a firm grasp of algorithmic reasoning, you are capable of it.

Algorithmic reasoning is a valuable skill across the economy, one of the most valuable, in fact, right after "risk evaluation" and "having a lot of money", but it's difficult to teach. For some people it seems to fit right into their mental model, and it's simply a "duh". For most, though, it either takes a ton of grinding their head against it, or more often they simply bounce off and decide to do something else. I think that is responsible for the relatively limited supply of developers, which combined with software being wildly profitable because of the whole "copies are free to make" scaling created a shortage, which drove up wages.

They drove up wages so much that approximately everyone who has any aptitude for algorithmic reasoning is now funneled into software development. I think that, more than anything, contributed to the explosive growth of the number of developers. Adults may be hesitant to jump industries, but subsequent generations flooded in.