Sometime around when wordpress came out, or at least 2005 or so, I started positioning myself as a bespoke web designer, then app developer. Whereas anyone could get a site done, I turned myself to doing things that hadn't been done before, for which standard solutions wouldn't fit. I turned away 80% of jobs and raised my rate from $25 to $100, then to $300/hr. To me, pricing and only doing bespoke work was a defensive measure against falling into a career hole I didn't want to end up in. But mostly it was just that I didn't want to repeat myself or waste my time doing something that a client could already buy off the shelf.

Artisanal code, or bespoke code, has always been the best paid and most satisfying work. If we no longer have a new generation of curious people who enjoy solving hard problems, it's only going to become more valuable.