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I think you're right in your comparison and that's way we'll soon see mass layoffs of software engineers. Software can now be produced with less people than before but I don't think there's market for more software.

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Historically, more efficient technology has led to a greater demand. It began with more efficient steam engines that required less coal for the same amount of work. That didn’t lead to a reduction in demand for coal, instead the acceleration in demand for coal changed the world.

However you measure it, in LOC or in MB or in ops per second, demand for more software always seems insatiable. This trend will likely continue up until software can be produced with zero humans at all. But I can’t see that happening unless we invent actual real artificial intelligence.

A counterexample that I can think of is agriculture. In the past almost everybody worked in it, now there are barely any farmers (relative to the overall population) producing much more food than before.

We were already flooded with software, if the iOS App Store has four million apps instead of two it will make little difference to peoples consumption of apps.

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