Money. That's what normal people associate with computer science. They don't understand what it is but they are well aware of the pay scales.
>Software development isn't high status field.
It wasn't before the money arrived. It is now.
These people potentially make decent money:
- self-employed bathroom tiler
- drug kingpin
- pornographer
What do they have to do with CS?
Zuck... I mean you're kidding right? Facebook literally wrote their own c++ strings that's optimized for their specific use case, made their own php interpreter, have open source c++ libraries, etc.
Also I just don't think normies differentiate between tech in general and computer science.
And the reason people like Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos are unpopular is because of their activities, comments, and things like that. That is: specific concrete things, not general "because they're a techie" kind of stuff.