In general, software workers are in an extremely fortunate position:
Their services are in high demand and this will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. Even when taking AI into account software creation will probably be among the very last jobs to be automated.
Software workers can create value out of thin air. Founding a business in the software industry is ridiculously easy. In almost any other industry high up-front investment is required. If you fail in any other industry you likely have to pay off a huge amount of debt. In the software industry the default worst case scenario is you've learned something along the way and just start over.
The idea that one can't found a business if one doesn't score in the VC lottery just seems like the feeling of being entitled to having everything handed to you for free. Not every software company has to be a unique snowflake. Not every software company has to be Facebook or Google. There's plenty of exciting software work to be done by bootstrapped software companies in down-to-earth industries (which are often often terribly underserved by the software development community at large).
This feeling of entitlement in my opinion is the root cause of the problem. As a software developer you can't expect business people to respect you and provide you with business leverage if all you want to do is sit at a desk all day and write code.
Communication is key. You need to present your work in terms non-developers can both understand and relate to, i.e. talk about the business value you provide.
If you don't want to be commoditised first of all don't commoditise yourself! You're not a bunch of TLAs. I find it offensive that people are commonly hired based on a set of acronyms as well as that people often identify with these acronyms. If you're a Java / PHP / JavaScript / whatever developer you're essentially a fungible commodity. If you present yourself as a skillful business problem solver that's an entirely different matter and more business-minded, less tech-savvy people will much more readily pay you the respect you deserve.
I guess your post makes some sense if you add a big fat asterisk: in some parts of the US and Europe.
The problem is: One is permanently surrounded by stupid people. If the business people were really smart (and those exist - they are just as rare as smart people in most other areas), I could accept the argument. Unluckily this is not the case. So presenting the work to "typical" other people (including non-developers) is like explaining Grothendieck-style algebraic geometry to a monkey.
> the range of topics that I can discuss while at work is very limited
If you aren't allowed to talk politics, sports, or whatever you want at the coffee machine, switch jobs.
> all software companies these days are huge corporations that treat you like a number
Change jobs. You might find it's better to do software in a non-software company. I do.
> I definitely feel like a slave. [..] there are no means of escape
Is your value on the job market that bad? Demand for software developers has never been higher. If you have fingers, chances are there is somewhere that will hire you. If you have no formal training, and no possibility to leave a geographical area (e.g. divorced with kids in that small town) then that might be a kind of geographical prison.
I don't know where you live, who your friends are, but I feel bad for you. I feel that I'm respected as a developer, people think I'm sort of wizard doing this (which I certainly don't agree with) but I rarely experienced looked down upon. Try to re-evaluate where are you at the food chain, because you are certainly not the lowest building block.
Respected slave. Software developers are very fortunate to be on the frontier of the tech word. But that does not mean we are free from slavery. We are respected slaves who are in high demand. The only solution is Universal Basic Income. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income. And the best thing about being a software developer is we are the closest people to make the UBI come true. Every minute put in to developing the skill will not go waste. Whenever i find and report a bug to the Free or Opensource project i feel like i am contributing to making the UBI come true.
UBI won't change much for people who already have a job they love. It's designed for people who need to close a gap between gaining knowledge and employments; coping with stress to not finding suitable jobs. I'd love to see it happen but I don't see the use to over-dramatize the misery of developers.
Any one who is not financially independent is a modern slave.
> It's designed for people who need to close a gap between gaining knowledge and employments; coping with stress to not finding suitable jobs.
No. You can do anything or remain idle. That UBI.
In no other area it's that easy to break free. You on your own or with a couple of friends/colleagues. As a side-project if you have that much energy, or full-time if you saved some money.
Don't want to take the risk and effort? Work on projects of other people/companies. Even less risk? Take a part-time job, that will still get you a decent income and heaps of spare time.
> As a result, others take advantage of us
Do you have a family, debt and ill parents nearby that make it impossible to look for something else, or why do you allow that somebody takes advantage of you?
I think that you (we) are in one of the most comfortable, luxurious and free positions that ever existed.
Only in the very general sense of being part of the class of "workers" rather than those who live off capital. Which puts you on the same rung as rather a lot of people.
I'd say the people on zero-hour or unpredictable schedules are treated as the lowest rung of workers: extreme economic uncertainty. If you don't know how many hours you're going to work, you can't know if you'll make rent at the end of the month. If you don't know when you'll work, you can't make other plans.
The people who are really treated as the lowest class are those unable to work, who are forever under suspicion.
That might depend on where you are, but in my experience it seems like one of the more solidly middle-class professions around. Doctors and lawyers (if employed) enjoy more prestige, but cleaners, salespeople, etc. appear to enjoy less. Do you have a source re: lowest class?
Note that I refer to prestige and societal reputation, rather than remuneration.
In terms of leverage, we are on par with administrative office workers, construction workers and labourers - It didn't have to be that way, but companies have managed to turn us into replaceable commodities.
I think that even sales people and HR recruiters these days have more leverage than we do.
Spoken like someone who has never had to do manual labor. First-world problems, much?
I found this really hilarious to the point of tears.
Are you for real or is this whole post for lulz?
As long as it is a job it is a form of slavery.
How is it a form of slavery if you're earning a decent wage and can leave any time you want?
Pull your head out of your arse and grow up.
Leave one master to serve another master.
> Pull your head out of your arse and grow up
This is the worst thing about modern slavery. People are not even aware of it. Wake up.
/s
Software workers are among lowest class of people in society. Those few engineers who happen to have any business leverage tend to be the most compliant ones and don't use that leverage for the benefit of their own kind; instead they are fully subservient to their corporate masters.
The corporates made sure that only the most docile engineers rose to the top. The problem is that as engineers we spend too much time working on our IQ and not enough on our EQ (which is unlike most other professions where some degree of hustling and social scheming is the norm) - As a result, others take advantage of us.
As I'm writing this, I understand that there will be repercussions some day for making inflammatory comments like this online. As big data get more effective, this comment will probably come up next to my profile picture somewhere with a big red cross next to it.
Nonetheless, I feel compelled to write this because this point of view needs to be expressed more often even if it sounds a bit extreme.