> Aren't we, though? Zero marginal cost of production is at least very rare.

Every profession can come up with a comparable point of uniqueness. Perhaps I should have said "special snowflakes" instead of "unique snowflakes".

> It basically means that to the extent that our projects aren't novel, then we're wasting time duplicating something that ideally would have been copied from elsewhere.

This is a good argument. It reminds me of DeMarco's argument that as time goes on, software engineering becomes less and less about process, because anything that is repeatable will be automated. All that's left is the hard bits that can't be automated.

There is, however, an enormous amount of duplication in our industry. And even when we are adapting an existing system, we're still only rarely performing acts of genuine novelty. Carpenters produce many items, none of them quite identical, but they aren't inventing new methods of carpentry or entirely different kinds of furniture on every job.

> But at least on the projects I see, it's much more often a sign that it's an interesting problem.

I envy you.