> So yeah, Dan had a problem of unimaginable scope in the 80s but also the problem is kind of fake?
I get what you're saying, but I don't think the problem is "fake" or artificial, maybe not even avoidable. Software is a tool, and you almost always need other tools to build and maintain tools.
Compare large construction projects, which often require separate construction projects, like building temporary roads to move all the material. Or drilling a long tunnel through a mountain: Frequently, entire factories will be built close to the tunnel entrance, which process the excavated material into concrete to be used for encasing the tunnel walls.
Another example: To produce huge numbers of screws in a cost-effective way, you need large, highly specialized machines, which serve no other purpose. And you need people who maintain those machines. Is that a fake problem, or are those fake jobs? Hardly.
Construction is an interesting case. If someone had written after the Empire State Building that skyscrapers would not grow another order of magnitude in the coming century, it would have been laughed at. There were lots of popular articles about “mile high” skyscrapers then. And skyscrapers today are much better! We have counterweights at the top, glass facades, fancy designs… But they’re mostly the same heights. Even the show off Burj Kalifa is only twice the occupied height. And we don’t even have a kilometer high skyscraper yet.
I get what you're saying, but I don't think the problem is "fake" or artificial, maybe not even avoidable. Software is a tool, and you almost always need other tools to build and maintain tools.
Compare large construction projects, which often require separate construction projects, like building temporary roads to move all the material. Or drilling a long tunnel through a mountain: Frequently, entire factories will be built close to the tunnel entrance, which process the excavated material into concrete to be used for encasing the tunnel walls.
Another example: To produce huge numbers of screws in a cost-effective way, you need large, highly specialized machines, which serve no other purpose. And you need people who maintain those machines. Is that a fake problem, or are those fake jobs? Hardly.