I don't really agree with the point that because we're creating things that allow us to use less or no code, there will be less code to write. We make things easier for ourselves so we can then build upon it and then write more complex things to solve more complex problems. It's the continual layering of abstraction that's been going on for decades.
Those webdevs are out of luck if they can't flex into something else. But, generally, I think you're right. When those jobs go away, in their stead we do other things with software. So instead of building websites for local real estate agents, SWEs are building systems to make virtual RE agents using ML.
Even your local real estate agent or plumber paid for a website...
You'd be surprised. Back in the day web devs couldn't decline enough jobs, and you could make a month's salary for what was a single static webpage...
But, displacing static-site designers is a much easier task than displacing developers due to the latter's work with logic, interactions, etc. Back in the 90s webapps were still nascent and just moving past cgi-bin to some extent, but the bar on replacing devs gets higher with each passing year. So, absent a huge leap in tooling or code generation, etc., I see dev roles changing more than going away.
Not that much when it comes to the majority of web development needs. A web store can now be made in minutes. A news site. A forum.
Heck, there are tons of turnkey company intranet solutions...
Well, sure, yet demand for developers remains strong. They're now moving up the complexity chain, working on different problems, etc. And, of course many are integrating with turnkey solutions like some you mentioned. Notice how so many of these "turnkey" solutions offer APIs?
A web store or forum isn't going to differentiate a business to success any more than a snazzy website will. The bar is now higher. The cycle continues.
We do consulting for new businesses every month that have started with these turnkey solutions which worked great for them, until they grew big enough that the system starts to break and hiccup more and more. For those clients, we provide an extreme amount of value to keep their online machine well oiled and they happily write us that check every month.
I will say though, that often the platforms I mentioned are not the real issue in the chain, but rather other tools and custom code added on top to hastily support some business decision. Shopify is a great example. Awesome core product that is extremely performant, but a lot of the themes and pre-built templates out there are not built to facilitate a rich and performant experience for customers. Shopify will gladly let you serve a 20mb banner video that will make even modern desktops chug to render and it doesn't really affect them at all. It's our job as consultants to come in and show the business where they can optimize to increase their conversion rate. They already have a product people want, otherwise they wouldn't be having scaling issues, so it's nice for us to get quick wins that result in positive outcomes for everyone.
Sure, but most of them wont move "past the out of the box limits of things like WooCommerce and Shopify". For the 1 that gets bigger or has special needs and does there would be other 9 that are just fine using those platforms...
And of course WooCommerce and Shopify can always add more customizability and capture those features eventually, so those devs who help companies "move past the out of the box limits of things like WooCommerce and Shopify", become comoditized glorified configurators (or the owner or admin of the company can even do it themselves).
Many of those who never move past that phase were likely not candidates for custom development anyway. They'd likely have sold on eBay or Amazon, whereas Shopify offered them the chance to have their own "store".
That is, many who can spend $29/month (or whatever) for a Shopify store wouldn't have been able to spring for $5K or $10K+ to have a custom store built. I would bet that's the overwhelming majority of Shopify customers.
So, arguably, you might even say Shopify helped some companies to get to the place where they can afford custom development.
But, this whole store thing is just a narrow focus anyway WRT the idea of obsoleting devs. There are plenty of more complex/differentiated businesses that have sprung up since e-commerce, and by the time any of those things have been commoditized, there'll be still more to take their place in this ongoing evolution.
People use Wix, get some traction, and then reinvest. Over time, they want to do more and more, but begin bumping into the limitations of the platform. That's when they hire a web developer to build them something.
That company wouldn't have otherwise seen enough value in the web to pursue hiring a web developer.
When I started only the most keen companies even had websites and I build them and many weren't much more complicated than you can do with Wix.
Now every company needs an online presence and most can get by with Wix but the number of companies that need a developer to build something competitive is larger now than it was back then.
The market is growing faster. But also the sophistication that users demand is going up as fast as there are tools to accomplish what was perfectly acceptable 10-15 years ago.
Only with SaaS most of us aren't needed to "solve more complex problems". The SaaS team can already solve them and sell them...
Most companies don't have "more complex problems" anyway, just problems stemming from bad software integration, which affiliated SaaS services can also solve...
So while there will always be coding work (at building SaaS and at building highly customized solutions), there will much less of it...
>It's the continual layering of abstraction that's been going on for decades.
It had been going on for decades, until it got reversed with the Cloud and SaaS offerings. We just haven't seen the full impact of those yet. But that's what the article is about.
They solve some problems and create other.