Isn't the fact that "anybody" can sit down and write a clone of Illustrator without years of work incredibly liberating?

If the tradeoff is giving up attribution, then is that worth giving this power to other people? This has and will made things that were previously impossible possible.

I think theft is a pretty strong term since what's been "stolen" is now freely available to everyone. People will have to find newer forms of motivation.

None of this work was previously found or accessible by people unless it found the right venues. For example, many people have written languages, only a few have gotten lucky enough to get on HN and get people even paying attention to them. In this new world, it's really not any different. If you find the right venues, people will know what you've created, if you don't as before, nobody will care or know.