Sure thing, my reasoning goes like this:

My first premise is that we are still in a relatively early stage of the technological boom signified by things like electronics, computers, robotics and the internet. These technologies have changed life on Earth dramatically, but I think there is at least as much to come. In any case, for the next two or three decades, more and more aspects of life will be the object of automation, computation etc. So the demand for software development will continue to increase, and probably by a lot. Software will become an even greater part of the economy and continue to crowd out other types of business.

My second premise is that only a small percentage of the population have the talent and inclination to become very good programmers, and children with these traits often do not get proper encouragement and guidance. So from the beginning, it is very hard for society to produce a large number of programmers. More importantly, the ratio of people who can become good programmers is probably more or less a constant, while the need for software development will grow much faster.

I also see reasons to believe that we are getting worse at producing programmers. For example, software is become more mature, hiding more and more of the internals. I started programming at age seven, in the eighties. In local stores I could buy glossy magazines with articles about programming, often with entire programs that I could copy into Basic etc. For sure, there is the internet now, but what kind of programming culture for kids is there? I could pick my first computer apart and learn all about how it worked. The kids these days learn to use iPads long before they learn to speak, but they never get to see what's inside. Who knows where this will lead? We already know that a lot of graybeards are retiring and they are often impossible to replace since the current generation of programmers is not nearly as hard-core.

I'm not @meriksson - but I feel the same way.

They're going to become more scarce because computing is being used in more and more places. The demand for developers is increasing - not decreasing - and I don't see any change in that in the next decade minimum.

Yes there are more folk coming into the field. Yes there are more places where smart code is letting people do more with less. Despite that I think it's harder now to find good developers than it was ten years back because the spaces where you need developers us growing stupidly fast.

I don't want to put words in meriksson's mouth, but from my point of view our society is becoming more and more dependent on technology but is not becoming more aware of how it works. As the expectations of software and hardware capabilities continually increase, there will be an increased need for people that can meet those expectations. New tools and techniques can definitely help to the existing population of developers to accomplish more, but I think overall more developer talent will be necessary to write all the software that needs to be written. At the same time it seems that there are few students going through school now that are interested in the types of learning that software development requires (science, math, logic, etc.). This is just my opinion, based on things I have been told by friends and family who are teachers. I admittedly don't have metrics to back this up.

My reasoning along the same line is that there will be many more applications for high-end software development skills, vastly exceeding the rate at which new people gain high-end software development skills.

Glad to be a "just a programmer" right about now.

I'm not the OP but here's my take on it: as we evolve so do our tools, and as more and more people start creating their businesses online, the tools to support that will become easier and more efficient it'll get to do that.

Today you don't need a programmer to setup your online website with a store attached to it (and that could be 100% of your business), imagine what you will be able to achieve in a couple of years by yourself.