Writing code was always cheap! You could outsource for inconsequential amounts of money and get massive amounts of code in return. Yet, the vast majority of companies do not do so. Because coding is not the hard part of being a software engineer / programmer.

That's like saying that photography killed painting because it saved you from having to draw things. Drawing is basically free now, I just take the photo. But the number of painters (and by that I mean, artists who paint) is dramatically higher today than in 1800. Artists didn't die because of mechanical reproduction, they flourished, because that wasn't the problem they were solving.