>What bothers me is the people that are happy to be a <1 developer.

We can't all be above average. So we are either all 1 developper, or some of us are bound to be less.

But we can all aspire to be a >1 developer, even if we're not one currently. I don't necessarily think that contentment with being below average is universally bad (maybe it's perfectly rational given one's preferences for leisure vs. work, for example), but I'd hope that most <1 developers are juniors who hope to improve over time.

Fair enough, but given the current ecosystem <1 still means something.

If it ever gets to the point where everyone is floating somewhere between 0.9 and 1.1, I’ll revise my statement.

It's unfair if they're normal employees, but fine if they're contractors/have their own company.

When they're spending all their working hours on one topic they're taking a huge personal sacrifice which is invisible to their employer while at the same time raising the expectations towards their colleagues. If there's for example two such maniacs in a team, the rest can say goodbye to promotions and raises even if they're actually just as good but don't sacrifice their life at the altar of programming.