And this is exactly the problem. Developers are happily passing off their biggest valuable asset to, essentially, their replacements while, at the same time, convincing themselves that them playing the "ideas guy" or "conductor" roles is the real value they bring to the table.

Like, get real!

I feel like I'm rapidly going insane. It wasn't that long ago when many people in this forum would boldly exclaim that their software development skills were their capital and take pride in their ability to build stuff. It also wasn't that long ago when the "ideas guys" were a meme here.

We're ceding almost all of our bargaining power because programming "was never valuable." And we're doing it with smiles from ear to ear.