[edw519] What I really care about is how my software is used. And who uses it

[heliodorj] The main motivator and source of satisfaction for software developers is the human aspect, not the technology itself. Is your product making a difference in someone's life?

I think these two statements show a profound misunderstanding of what motivates a lot (if not most) hackers.

What gets a lot of people into this field in the first place, and is a source of major satisfaction, is, "wow, I can make it do this!"

A true hacker will be say things like:

* "I just turned my toaster oven into a TV remote control!"

* "I just made fully-functional web browser using COBOL!"

No one will ever use the above creations, but the satisfaction is still there for person who accomplished them.

I don't think, at least in the early stages, people who go into this field get excited by who or how many people end up using what they did. It's the pure thrill of getting things done that were not possible before that excites these people.

Of course, there is a second source of major satisfaction, which is to see your creation being used by many other people. This is huge, but I think is a distinct source of satisfaction than the one I mentioned above.

The third distinct source of satisfaction is, of course, making a ton of money from your creation.

I don't know about young programmers these days, but, when I was programming my first Amstrad CPC, I was being motivated mostly by the first type of satisfaction: getting this box to do what I wanted it to. The thought of my programs being used by others and making money from them didn't really cross my mind at the time.

Maybe what the author of the OP is starting to miss is the pure thrill of making something new, something exciting. Building another social networking website, even if it gets lots of users, simply isn't technically challenging or exciting (it is extremely challenging from other points of view, but you won't be breaking any new technical ground)

I think the software industry may be going through what others went through before it:

* Airplanes: In the beginning only "hackers" where in on it, trying to make planes get off the ground. In a few decades, most of the major advances had been made, and new people entering the field just wanted to find ways to use the existing technology to make money (e.g. Frequent flyer miles)

* Telephones: In the beginning, there were lots of technical problems with getting great phone quality over landlines. In a few decades, most technical problems were solved, and people came in to use the existing technology to make money (e.g. "Call 555-1234 to hear your horoscope for $3/min")

Maybe something like this is happening with computers today. Most of the major non-AI problems are solved, and now people are coming into the field to use existing technology to make money (e.g. Facebook, Yelp, Groupon, Youtube, etc)

If and when we get to some decent level of AI, the bar will be raised and a whole new set of problems will be attacked. So, AI-type problems (speaker-independent and accent-independent voice recognition, image search, natural language search, translation between languages, etc) seem like a great area to be in for someone who gets a thrill from making something totally new. Unfortunately, the whole AI field seems a bit stagnant at the moment. It will take someone with a totally new take on how to do things to take AI to the next level.