For me, it went like this:
- The nerds did their nerd shit in the garage. Nobody saw them.
- Then the nerds figured out how to revamp many business processes with computers.
- Then those businesses needed more of that, so they started hiring other nerds.
- Not too many nerds existed because they're nerds and who wants to be a nerd? So therefore demand was high. What happens to the nerds' salaries when demand is high? Salaries are high.
- Now the nerds are making money. Tons of it. People started to notice that the nerds could sit all day and type at a computer (hey I can do that too!) but they make 100k more than I do.
- Eager to cash in on that nerd money, I start to google "how to code". Codeacademy, Kahn Academy, Udemy, and a plethora of highly expensive code camps show up. I pick my poison and begin.
- A Github profile is set up, my LinkedIn is updated, I have a few webapps under my belt, I'm ready for my interview.
- I get a job at Big Tech company as a junior position. A few weeks go by and I'm asked if I could help interview another candidate. Of course, I'm qualified enough right?
And the cycle continues.
This is how I perceived the shift happen. Code Camps were really detrimental since it became very difficult to vet actual skills vs. ability to pass coding interviews. When I worked at Uber this was a huge deal - a lot of people that had just finished code camps nailed the interviews but only lasted a few months because they had no idea how to actually do anything.
Of course it's all very nuanced and this isn't the only thing that happened (making programming "easier" certainly hasn't helped). But this was a large factor.