I never fail to be confused by this assertion. Why is it that coders expect to be paid for developing apps, yet anyone writing or taking pictures or creating music should just assume they are creating it for free?
Developers go to work and produce something for someone else, and in exchange get paid. Then they go home and work on their own stuff. Writers, too, can get a job where they write for someone who is willing to pay them, and then go home and write their own stuff. In most cases, the developers don't really like having to produce stuff for someone else, but that's how they pay the bills.
The developers seem to be more adept (in your analogy) at solving the problem: they find someone who wants to pay them BEFORE they produce the software (even shrinkwrap software or startups presumably have done some market research to find out if their output is attractive to potential buyers of said product). The writer or photographer who tries to find someone to buy their output AFTER it's already created is facing an uphill battle, mostly in marketing, trying to convince someone to buy their product rather than producing a product the market demands.
Developing software for someone else is like working in a portrait studio or photographing products for ads.
I'm not sure why you make a distinction between coders and those other groups, here.
Also, while I appreciate that this is ultimately the same issue as the death of privacy, there seem to be a lot of people who want to both strengthen privacy laws and abolish copyright. In this sense, you're less confused than that group, anyway. :)