The pay is usually indicative of employer's ability to find a person with the necessary skillset to do the job and not some abstract "importance to society" value that the job has.
Wouldn't it be nice if pay was correlated with value to society? There are a lot of software engineers getting paid bank to make products that are worse for users and society but make their bosses fat stacks. The school janitor is providing more benefit to society.
As a software dev I agree, and I've worked on some products I'd deem as a net positive to society. But there is just so much shit software out there.
As a German I wonder what the people where thinking programming VWs TDI system to activate emission controls only during testing, was it worth it? Polluting the environment and peoples lungs for a bit of money? It's not like dev jobs are a rarity in Germany. And yes I'm judgemental about this. And don't get me started on the things that are legal and still a detriment to society.
What were the execs that put a bunch of monkeys in an exhaust gas chamber to prove it was “clean diesel” thinking? Or the ones who signed off on the “Green Police” ad?
The pay is usually indicative of employer's ability to find a person with the necessary skillset to do the job and not some abstract "importance to society" value that the job has.