The world where programmers and frankly most intellectual workers enjoyed privileged position and high salaries is ending. Some will survive most will have to adjust, start new careers, possibly never come close to income levels they enjoyed.

I was part of it in online poker world. You needed 2 functioning braincells to make 6 figures while playing a few hours a day back in 2005/2006. It got more and more difficult from there. First it got guys "living their life" while hustling on the side who thought it's an easy mode forever and didn't even bother to learn new tools. Then it turned previously good players into marginal grinders and then only a small group of winners remained. Many went to different/easier pastures - private games, heavy game selection at (super) high stakes. Most though lost their income and with it years of life that now seemed wasted in front of the computer.

Among my friends I've seen suicides (two), lost families (more than two), despair and poverty (too many to count). There are also positive stories - people who started doing something else, adjusted their expectation and are now living happy life even though their income will never be close to what their experienced in their early twenties.

In online poker - instead of Fable - we had ever developing tools. Databases, HUDs, HUDs connected to databases, auto-seating scripts (where a script looks for "donks" and auto seats you at the table when they seat) and then bots and solvers. I was on the frontier lab side I guess as the author of the most popular solver when they first came out. Now Fable is coming after my edge.

I am still a tech optimist. I think it will be a better and more abundant world at the end of it. There is still a lot of jobs we are not doing now because we don't have enough people. The transition is going to hurt though, especially those who don't have energy to start from scratch.

Gambling for living taught me no income stream is forever. Especially lucrative ones are going to be competed for and will dry out. Live below your means, try to save money, don't compete for status. It was always a good advice but it never hits until it's you who it applies to.