Technology has absolute qualities. Not a fantasy. Are you being paid to browse hacker news? Probl not, but here you are. Maybe you never considered this, but programming for other reasons other than a salary is a possibility. If those pesky programmers gave it all away, for free, what would be left for you to sell? In this case, would you leave technology? Would you go somewhere else and practice your selling there? Can't we defend building for the sake of building? Doing for the sake of having fun? Maybe you would be left with nothing to sell, I understand, but that's fine for me. Sorry.