Yes this has been the motivation for decades. There has always been a language, methodology, or system being hyped that promised to eliminate the need for trained programmers. Why? Because they are expensive.

Digital computers were cheaper than the legions of human "calculators" that they replaced, but once those savings were realized, the next step was to attack the smaller number but still expensive per head staff of programmers you needed to get the most value out of a computer.

Counterpoint -- capital owners see SWEs as their asset, and owners do not like to see their assets go away (with intellectual property in their heads). So they nurture and give a lot of freedom to their SWEs.

I've seen both ways, and don't share the "capital owners BAD" sentiment. The first thing to join a company is to see whether they assign Eng department to Costs or to Assets mentally.

I agree but I'd also note that a capital owner actually has a couple motivations to get rid of high paid labors.

1) Cost

2) Flexibility. If you can hire random laborers to do most of your tasks, you can quickly scale up whereas if you depend on highly skilled and trained workers, starting a new operation elsewhere is hard. Similar, you can shift activity around, are less impeded by the opinions of workers, etc. Significantly, this may allow you to "franchise" your operations in various ways.

> Software engineers are laborers. If you're a capital owner, a laborer is something that weights down your returns.

> It's not rocket science.

It's far above the heads of many supposedly "smart" software engineers, who looked at their high salaries and 401ks, forgot they were disposable laborers, and confused themselves for capitalist tycoons.

Drop the libertarianism and form a labor union before it's too late. You're not smart if you're parroting your boss's talking points like an idiot.