Yeah, I work in an industry where software enables things, so it is central. But even in my industry (business apps), we could just go on with pen and paper like before. So programs are not "absolutely fundamental" but in the 21th century, well, they are :-)

But I can admit it's not like that everywhere, sure. But I've yet to see industries where people pay programmers to work on IT project which are not fundamental in a way or another or in the process of becoming fundamental. The point is when programs get deployed, they usually transform (and hopefully improve) a situation. Once the transformation is accomplished, the program becomes fundamental...