I did both for multiple years. I know which one feels like work.

Go work 20 years of Friday and Saturday nights in a popular restaurant. Does not have to be the same one, as the expectation is the same.

The level of effort I need to put into coding dropped off exponentially.

As one ages the level of effort out into restaurant work goes up.

Let’s rely on science and not bias. Programming is still not sweatshop work on the regular. I work 4 solid hours a day.

I know, I’ve done both too.

Why isn’t there a flood of ex-restaurant workers becoming software engineers? Because getting over that hump is really hard, statistically speaking.

You're equivocating on the meaning of the word "difficulty." It's impossibly difficult for anybody but me to be exactly me, but that doesn't mean it's hard work for me to be me.

I've worked in a factory as a machine operator, and in a company as a programmer, and they're not comparable in either difficulty or compensation.

They never said it took 20 years for programming to become less hard

yet compare entry level for programming and waiter job

people with engineering degree struggle to find job as SE.

let alone that you need to put hundreds/thousands of hours into it in your free time

and then still learn a lot as dev in order to move up

i'm not saying that it makes SE harder, just different.