I started my IT career in 2011, I have enjoyed it, I have got to do a lot of interesting stuff and meet interesting people, I will treasure those memories forever.
But, starting with crypto turing general computing from being:
"Wow, this machine can run so many apps at the same time!" or "Holy shit, those graphics look epic!" or "Amazing, this computer has really sped up that annoying task!"
To being:
Yo! Look at how many numbers I can generate!
That brought down my enthusiasm severely, but hey, figuring out solutions to problems was still fun.
Then came AI/LLMs.
And with it, a mountain of slop.
Finding help about an issue has gone from googling and reading help articles written by something with an actual brain to mostly being rephrased manuals that only provide working answers to semi standard answers.
Add to that a general push to us AI in anything and everything, no matter how little relevance it holds for the task at hand.
I also remember how AI was sold to the us at first, we were promised to do away with boring paperwork, so we could get on with our actual job.
What did we get? An AI that takes the fun and creative parts, leaving the paperwork for the workers.
We got an AI that we need to expect to be stealing our work and data at every point, giving us shit work back, while being told that we should applaude it and be grateful for it.
And the worst thing, the worst thing is that people seem happy with it. I keep getting requests to buy another Copilot license or asking for another AI service to be added to our tenant, I am sick of it!
We got an AI that somehow has slithered onto the golden throne and can't be questioned.
I am not able to leave the tech market at this time, but I will focus on more tangible hobbies going forward.
This year, I have given myself a project, I will try to build a model railway in a suitcase. That will be a Z-scale tiny world in a suitcase.
I have never done anything remotely like it, but I feel like I need something physical to take my mind off tech.
Sorry for the rant, but I just came off of a high from realizing and putting words to my feelings.
I'm the only "active tech" at my tiny local shop/"MSP". I have two bosses who are each "owners" of the company and neither of them can fix their own workstations.
Neither can handle domain DNS changes. Neither of them can migrate mail. Neither of them have taken "support" calls for the last 5 years- instead they've transferred everything technical beyond "restart your PC" to me. I've seen a few people younger than me around who actually have basic understanding of internet DNS, TCP/IP, but for the most part I'm starting to think that after my generation, the internet will corrode, collapse, and die. I hope I'm wrong, UNLESS the internet continues being handled largely by 5 gigantic, evil corporations- in THAT case I hope it dies.
It will become a more specialized, niche knowledge. It's similar to cars. In the 1950s, it was extremely common for regular people to know how to fix their own car. But as cars became more reliable and complex, fewer and fewer now know how. There's still a definite market for mechanics and mechanical engineers, but it's a specialty line. You go to college, or generally go through a manufacturer's training program.
What's going to change are the expectations and expertise going in. When Microslop wants new developers, or support staff, or whatever else, the candidates aren't going to be (as) familiar with it going in. They won't be able to meaningfully apply their knowledge of similar systems and products.
They'll have to bring back extensive company-led training programs.
This will apply to every large tech company, regardless of field. In your networking example, it would probably be run by Cisco, which isn't too different from how it is today.
There is also DRM and other shenanigans going on.
For example, just to replace your brake pads - something that most everyone should be able to do - requires, on most average modern cars made in the last 2-3 years, a $1,000,000 piece of software with a $6,000/mo subscription package.
Why? Because until the vehicle manufacturer authorizes that brake pad replacement, that vehicle will refuse to even turn on, much less move. It needs to obtain cryptographically-signed approval from the manufacturer for the work that had been done to it in order for it to even turn over the engine.
Now your average car owner isn’t going to have these means, so everything gets pushed off to manufacturer-authorized repair depots, invariably car dealerships, where everything can be nickel-and-dimed to maximum revenue.
This lack of repairability is one of three major reasons why I will never personally own a vehicle manufactured after 2006.