That's not the argument being made here. The field is changing. I had a good career in graphics, my life wasn't wasted at all. That doesn't mean a college student would have the same experience starting today.
The field is always changing. You could find people in the 80s saying ‘I had a good career in graphics, a college student would not have the same experience starting today’
For example, "there's no chance to become the next one" implies it's only worth it to do something if you can become the absolute best person in the field.
It's a big world. Most of us will not be the very best at what we do. There are millions of fun games that were not written by John Carmack.
I kid, but there are many other modern Carmacks and id argue even more impressive contributions. The guy has done little since he left gaming.
I wish more people praised Alex Evans. Dreams rendering tech is still unmatched to this day and was my inspiration for graphics, not Carmack.
The rapid advances, in a trend replicating throughout society, push out the middle in favor of the top.
Joking (sort of).
I can't say I know of any in the fields I'm familiar with. I've watched tech get increasingly top-heavy since the covid hiring boom and bust, although it was already trending that way.
There are a lot of fields dominated by boomers on the verge of retirement that are the safest bet for people who want to be good and make a good living but don't care to be extraordinary.
I've heard that from arborists, water treatment specialists, actuaries, a few others.
I hate these people telling people who love to do a certain thing that they should just become a plumber or an electrician. Not everything is about spending your life to make as much pieces of paper the govt tells you are worth something.
I'd rather be in poverty working with computers everyday and doing what I love than make 10k a month being a plumber. I actually can't stand you people.
Which fields would you say are the best to just be mediocre in
> I actually can't stand you people.
Unnecessary. People who want a basic middle class existence are not greedy and should not receive disdain. Many have responsibilities to their elders or others, have kids or want them, etc. so avowed poverty is not realistic.
Especially when bohemian poverty is an increasingly vanishing option on a practical level.
Other people choose a job that pays enough that they do not have to live with the stresses that poverty brings. Even if they do not love it.
When I hear statements like yours, I think that they come from not actually having lived with very little money.
I feel more like people kept flooding into the middle and bottom, and companies that used to focus on top talent got watered down with those middle and bottom types.
A lot of the people getting laid off from Google and Meta would not have been hired at all in those places 15 years ago, for example.