I think there's a capitalism culture that is killing a lot of what could have been good software. People are less interested in making something great or useful than they are getting a huge bag of money from VC / tech.

I know before I got into professional programming I was frequently excited and working on side projects, including utility libraries, games and creative coding, and other things that I considered "valuable" just for the sake of doing them. Now I work for a digital agency building and maintaining a bunch of marketing websites that add, to my mind, zero "value" to the external world... maybe a corporate sale or two, but nothing actually helpful, useful, or even fun.

Why do I do this? Because it was a relatively low friction way for me to make a decent living while keeping my general work hours low. I don't have any illusions about the industry being some grand savior; frankly, I'm not even sure things can last at this pace of investor propped up companies bleeding cash but still somehow considered a good investment, but I'm going to use it while it is profitable and live a modest life without too much worry until things do hit the fan. I think that if I made a career change out of tech I might have the time and energy to return to my old programming projects but when I've spent the better part of the day on someone else's web app I don't have much stomach for building my own on my spare time.