"Other payroll employees" is doing a lot of lifting.

The question is really, payroll is made up of builders, vs nonbuilders.

Are devs different from other builders? The dirty secret is that they are not.

Ford engineers, P&G food researchers, and architect salaries are capitalized just like Software development costs.

But, in the case of software development, only those builders are getting a nice subsidy.

A world where we treat all workers as expenses is not likely since it means the end of US GAAP. So, we must treat all builders like builders . There shouldn't be special favors for some any specific builder group.