Testing products, getting a feel for them, thinking about them, talking and exploring, I mean this is still there and it's long been the actual time-consuming part of making great software; where the soft skills intersect with the hard.

Maybe the technical stuff is more accessible then it was beforehand but the thousands of hours of the other stuff that leads to good software is still thousands of hours.

Quality has become less work, but only by a little.

But this doesn't mean people value the craftsmanship because they never did before...

It's always been simply a popularity contest and now it's that more than ever.

The question is, why are you spending your time building things? Is it to make things that are finely crafted? Is it the road to wealth? As a tool to get other work done? Just make sure you have an answer.

It's your time after all...