Age is probably somewhat of a factor here since people who went into software before it was so highly paid likely didn’t have money as a huge motivator, compared to people who went into software more recently
Having said that, software engineering as a profession is shitty in some respects. I don't think I would do it if it paid as little as the humanities. I'd continue doing it on my own time, but the drudgery of dealing with other people's bad code, corporate practices, clueless bosses, clients who undervalue and lowball you, etc. wouldn't be worth dealing with.
It's not so much that I wouldn't be able to make a living, because I think I'd be content living on relatively little(as I am currently experiencing), but life is just too short to deal with professional software engineering when I'd get so little out of it.
Alternatively, I'd just go into woodworking. Income becomes relative to the quality of work produced (I've never worked anywhere that actually cared about or rewarded quality code) and I could say or do whatever I want without someone else reaping most of the benefits and judging my actions by outdated 1950s office standards.
Where everyone loved something about technology programming/hardware/etc and continued day or night.
In many ways things would be better. This represents a time before everyone liked computers and most feared them. Salaries were not as high as today. The work was harder but more meaningful.
We can't go back. The future looks more like turning programmers into interchangable pieces that can be commodized. Defining all work into smaller pieces.
I think many of us would trade big salaries for jobs at places like bell labs.
I loved art and drawing too. But I wisely chose not to master in art when going to college.
Also, rent in some cities might not be as much if fewer people went into tech ;-)
I go to work every day just for the money. I keep on top of tech trends for optionality.
I'm good at my job and I enjoy it for the most part, but I'm only doing it because I get paid well.
I would probably have continued programming in the evenings, but doing history as the day job. Today I program in the day, and often read history in the evenings.
Ultimately, I like paying rent/mortgage, soo.... yeah.
I ended up in computer engineering because it came natural (and now, software engineering as that's where the jobs are). If humanities salary was swapped I'd be a history major while tinkering on the side :)