By organizing across the field, software engineers would have been able to have more input into the rate of engineer growth (which would have hurt bootcamps but generally lead to higher quality engineers, and avoided over hiring), compensation (which likely would have hurt some of the people making insane FAANG salaries, but lifted up most others), professional licensing (i.e. maybe you just do that leetcode/project/etc gauntlet once to get licensed, not for every new application), enforced professional ethics (as a profession we agree to limits on the kinds of exploitative work we do) etc, etc.
The problem is that anyone even suggesting this back then (and there were a few people) would be downvoted into oblivion. Engineers found rewarding, high paying, prestigious work easily and virtually everyone thought that was an eternal truth.
Now it's way, way too late.