There are a lot of problems that can be solved by technology but require some "niche" competence. Take the emerging field of data science.
It's possible that market dynamics will change in a way that favors small businesses over large corporations. Is it likely? You have not convinced me.
Google needs thousands employees in order to run the infrastructure that maintains its current scale, and in order to develop the features needed to keep its competitive edge. Fifty employees is not going to cut it.
It is conceivable that it could be run with, say, 5000 employees instead of 50000. It is possible that the additional 45,000 employees are basically unprofitable, executing vanity projects to give shareholders the impression that Google is innovating in new directions. If that is the case, as programmers we should probably be thankful, because that money is going to bid up our salaries, rather than being paid back as dividends to wealthy shareholders.
In other words - even if businesses could be run much more efficiently - the beneficiaries would be the shareholders, not engineers. Only if the shareholders used their extra dividends to buy more software would it balance out to engineers. If Google suddenly became far more efficient, fired 90% of its workforce, and paid dividends to shareholders, that would not magically create a market opportunity for 1,000 new small businesses to pop up. The new jobs would be in whatever the shareholders getting the dividends choose to spend their money on.
It's possible that market dynamics will change in a way that favors small businesses over large corporations. Is it likely? You have not convinced me.
Google needs thousands employees in order to run the infrastructure that maintains its current scale, and in order to develop the features needed to keep its competitive edge. Fifty employees is not going to cut it.
It is conceivable that it could be run with, say, 5000 employees instead of 50000. It is possible that the additional 45,000 employees are basically unprofitable, executing vanity projects to give shareholders the impression that Google is innovating in new directions. If that is the case, as programmers we should probably be thankful, because that money is going to bid up our salaries, rather than being paid back as dividends to wealthy shareholders.
In other words - even if businesses could be run much more efficiently - the beneficiaries would be the shareholders, not engineers. Only if the shareholders used their extra dividends to buy more software would it balance out to engineers. If Google suddenly became far more efficient, fired 90% of its workforce, and paid dividends to shareholders, that would not magically create a market opportunity for 1,000 new small businesses to pop up. The new jobs would be in whatever the shareholders getting the dividends choose to spend their money on.