Exactly. Motivation is rarely a question of either/or (art for art's sake / art for recognition). And for many practitioners, being part of a community of fellow artists who "know the struggle" is also part of the fun.
Exactly. Motivation is rarely a question of either/or (art for art's sake / art for recognition). And for many practitioners, being part of a community of fellow artists who "know the struggle" is also part of the fun.
"Knowing the struggle" is/was a massive part of my enjoyment of programming. I used to love browsing Github just to see what people were building and really appreciating clever ideas or the amount of work required to make something, especially when it's something of limited commercial value. Now I feel like I've lost that. So it's not just that I don't get appreciation for my work but I find it's harder to appreciate other people's work.
There will always be communities of people who want to handcraft everything, who will be available to commiserate about the struggle of their craft. We still have people doing crazy shit like collecting/smelting iron by hand and smithing it into swords (which will literally never be used).
Probably, just like now where there are still small groups of hobbyist programmers who write in little-used languages for obscure old platforms hardly anyone else cares about. But I think it's perfectly fair to mourn the prospect of something that used to be both your passion and livelihood get pushed to some dusty niche corner of the tech landscape.