A programmer working on a webapp has all the tools he needs (or may easily get them, often for free) to do the development on his computer. He has to ask nobody for permission and need not (even if he chooses to do so) work for somebody else.

Yes you still need hosting and coffee but those things are commodities (heck coffee is traded on the Chicago mercantile exchange) and the skilled tradesmen of the old needed copper, wood and tools too.

Interestingly enough this also means that the equalization between skilled and unskilled labor which the industrial revolution brought (the unskilled labors never had it better, compared to their contemporaries, than during and after the industrial revolution) has ended -- a person can no longer come out of school, work at the assembly line and expect a good solid middle-class job. At the same time those who take the time (and have the opportunity) to educate themselves can expect to make a pretty good life.

Some part of me feel a little sad that those big machines don't matter as much as they used to, but the rest of me is very happy they don't. I much prefer working with computers to standing in a factory.