I learned my first few languages through the acid inpired O'Reilly tomes of early/mid 90's. Since then things are far more accessible but this effect is throughout society, not just programming.
You can teach yourself law or medicine these days online as well as engineering but it doesn't seem to have a commodity effect on any of these professions.
The main barrier remains. It's not easy to learn and requires a person with the "type". I believe the biggest barrier to highly skilled jobs isn't necessarily the skill but skill combined with interest.
Most people simply don't want these kinds of jobs regardless of the pay. Make 2-3x as much to do a job that requires endless learning and a lot of tedium, that only attracts a couple percent of the population that naturally enjoys this type of work or wants the money bad enough to put up with it
You can teach yourself law or medicine these days online as well as engineering but it doesn't seem to have a commodity effect on any of these professions.
The main barrier remains. It's not easy to learn and requires a person with the "type". I believe the biggest barrier to highly skilled jobs isn't necessarily the skill but skill combined with interest.
Most people simply don't want these kinds of jobs regardless of the pay. Make 2-3x as much to do a job that requires endless learning and a lot of tedium, that only attracts a couple percent of the population that naturally enjoys this type of work or wants the money bad enough to put up with it