Manufacturing and software development are very different though. Any able bodied person can work in a factory. If we're being generous I'd say at most 10% of the population is even capable of writing software. The demand for these people is only going to increase. As we have seen with rising developer salaries, the scarcity of the skill allows some leverage to the employee that other fields lack.
Software development is also unique in that it's one of the few roles that works really well remotely. I'd say most developers are even more productive remote than in the office due to the need to sustain mental focus in a way that's difficult with a lot of distractions.
Don’t get me wrong; I would expect salaries for remote programmers in rural areas to be higher than typical for the area.
But the future is not going to be something like hundreds of thousands a year in a town where average of cost of living is like $30-$40k.
It’s quite possible I am being too cynical. But people spend all day carefully measuring what we should make to insure the balance isn’t too tilted in our favor. I doubt they’re going to miss what seems like an obvious reality to me.
You're right over the long-term, but all market advantages disappear over the long-term. The fact that in 50 years software development will be a commodity skill that anybody can do from anywhere does nothing to ease a labor shortage today. And the remote worker who can competently ship software on demand doesn't care that his kids won't be able to do the same; he can make bank now and use the excess to set them up for the careers that'll be in high demand tomorrow.
Software development is also unique in that it's one of the few roles that works really well remotely. I'd say most developers are even more productive remote than in the office due to the need to sustain mental focus in a way that's difficult with a lot of distractions.