Let’s assume that in 10 years, AI has advanced absurdly, insanely fast, and is now capable of doing everything a Senior SWE can do. It can program in 15 different languages, 95% accuracy with almost no mistakes, can create entire applications in minutes, and no more engineers or SWEs are needed… What will all the devs do? Do they just become homeless? Transition to medical field, nursing? Become tradespeople like plumbers, HVAC?
Same in a lot of other industries too. This is literally how capitalism functions. This is how they reduce costs when they can’t find any other way.
Except it is often more costly to do this in the long run, so it’s a fiscally stupid move that corporations seem to make over and over again.
I think part of what perpetuates it is, the people making the decisions don’t stay there long term, so they never really face the repercussions.
Some more stable places seem like they may have realized this though and keep things all or mostly in house.