Future of Arts Jobs Ain't Gonna Change

My mom has frequently wondered if the non-science/maths jobs would start paying more in today’s economy as the nature and number of jobs increases. But with “software eating the world” (see my earlier blog), I feel the opposite will happen: the demand for software knowledge will increase and the software industry will continue to disrupt most other parts of the economy. And by extension, jobs in those parts of the economy.

Now, don’t get me wrong: software development rarely needs great science or maths knowledge, but companies still hire only engineers as software developers. (My guess as to why that happens is that companies feel that if you’re an engineer, you must have had the discipline to slog your way through school and college; and discipline and hard-work are welcome in all industries).

Allen Pike writes that writing software used to be a job, not an art:
“Programming hasn’t traditionally been thought of as a medium of creative expression…Software has historically been written by Real Businesses to make Real Profit.”
Until the Internet and the smartphone happened, that is. Now plenty of people write software apps and games and fan pages for the fun of it. And as we know:
“Any creative or artistic outlet, when coupled with the internet, creates an astronomically large supply.”
And once you have such a demand-supply mismatch, inevitably pay will drop in those fields. This is exactly why most apps for your phone or tablet are free and it’s very rare for app developers to make money.

Writing software for the love of it converts it into an art and as Pike points out:
“(The) issue arises with all forms of art. Even when parents see their children excel creatively, they’re of course proud, but often become wary. Your tuba playing sure is nice kid, but how about you keep your grades up so you can get a real job one day? Sure, it’s kind of awful to discourage a kid from their wild dream of being a professional tubist, but you know what? They’re gonna have a bad time. The cliché knows best: artists starve.”

Sad but true. Remember: don’t shoot the messenger…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Student of the Year

Image
As a toddler, my daughter loved Alia Bhatt’s songs, esp. the ones from Student of the Year . (That movie did have many good songs and well-choreographed dances). Fast forward to present day, when she is 12 yo. She rarely watches Hindi movies now, but one of the few ones she likes of late, Raja aur Rani ki Prem Kahani has, yes, Alia Bhatt.   If I had any hopes that there was anything to be read in the name of her toddler-time favorite ( Student of the Year ), they have been dashed. Our conversations come exam time are perfectly captured by this photo and its caption: In fact, the pic below captures how she and I look at her answer sheets – me intently, she with an expression of “It’s over, so why are you even looking at it?”   Of late, we pull her leg and tell her that she isn’t showing any signs of academic prowess, she’d better find a rich guy to marry. Some time later, she showed us this meme on the Internet: “Me No Study, Me No Care Me Go Marry Millionaire If He Die
Read more

Why we Deceive Ourselves

In their book, The Elephant in the Brain , the authors describe this weird aspect of deception that we practice: deceiving ourselves! That is so weird: “If our minds contain maps of our worlds, what good comes from having an inaccurate version of these maps?” The Sigmund Freud school of thought treats self-deception as a defense mechanism, “a way for the ego to protect itself”. The mind seeks to protect itself from anxiety and other negative emotions. Many object to this reasoning: since accurate information is so critical to our survival, surely distorting information would be dangerous. Wouldn’t the goal of protecting our self-esteem have been better achieved by making the brain’s self-esteem mechanism stronger instead? The new school of thought explains self-deception as “primarily outward-facing, manipulative, and ultimately self-serving”. This is based on Thomas Schelling’s work on game theory: “In a variety of scenarios, limiting or sabotaging yourself is the winn
Read more

Handling of the Satyam Scam

The Satyam scam. How does that fit into Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s book on reforms in India, Backstage ? The reason is that, as both NASSCOM and the government of India felt: “(Satyam’s) collapse would create a great deal of disruption for clients worldwide and seriously damage India’s reputation as a reliable source of software services.”   Therefore, the government decided to work with the private sector to “organize a quick takeover by a reputable new buyer, who would quickly restart the company”. But that could not be done overnight. In the meantime, the new board would have to reach out to Satyam’s clients and “reassure them that the company would survive”.   For the new board to have credibility when it made that statement, it had to be staffed with people who understood the private sector, the IT sector in particular, and commanded respect and trust. Deepak Parikh from HDFC was made chairman, and other members of the board included a former NASSCOM chairman, CII member,
Read more