The idea of lowering the learning curve for website development has fascinated me for the past 10-ish years during my employment in the content management system industry. Every once in a while the idea that a tool can replace a developer surfaces, energizes a few people, and then falls flat for one reason or another. Yet it always resurfaces, likely due to the revolutionary nature of a successful solution.
The most common reason for failure I've seen seems to stem from the idea that a website requires a developer due to a website requiring massive amounts of meticulously written text in an esoteric language; by replacing this text with a graphical interface, a website no longer requires a developer who understands how to write this text. Experience leads me to believe a developer serves a much different purpose in building websites.
Consider applying this logic to another problem, such as writing. If one builds a tool allowing non-writers to drag correctly spelled words and punctuation onto a page, then a non-writer now has the ability to write gripping novels, impactful research papers, and influential editorials -- and they can do this without knowing how to spell. This doesn't make sense, of course, since writing a book requires a certain understanding of how to communicate effectively, an achievement demanding a much more clever tool.
Much like writing a book, writing software also demands a much more clever tool than a graphical, drag-and-drop interface. Developers understand more than how to write text in odd languages; they understand how to solve problems. Creating a graphical interface for building websites doesn't remove the necessity of a developer. On the contrary, it creates more jobs for more developers who specialize in building applications using a drag-and-drop interface.
I agree with you mostly, but let's also consider the value of lowering the bar of entry. Once upon a time "software engineer" meant someone punching cards and running them through one out of a handful machines on Earth to execute a piece of logic. In 10 years from now "software engineer" might mean someone who practically draws something on a touchable, wireless surface that weighs less than a couple of those punch cards that used to hold a single logical instruction, and their software is instantly available to billions of people.
Or to translate to your analogy: there might have been a lot of brilliant writers in the world that simply never learned how to write, or they never had access to distribution so the only person who read their masterpiece was themselves. Today, with the Internet and computers and better access to schools, we have a lot more writers. There might also be more lower quality content because the bar of entry has been lowered, but I'm absolutely sure there will be a lot more high quality content as well.
The most common reason for failure I've seen seems to stem from the idea that a website requires a developer due to a website requiring massive amounts of meticulously written text in an esoteric language; by replacing this text with a graphical interface, a website no longer requires a developer who understands how to write this text. Experience leads me to believe a developer serves a much different purpose in building websites.
Consider applying this logic to another problem, such as writing. If one builds a tool allowing non-writers to drag correctly spelled words and punctuation onto a page, then a non-writer now has the ability to write gripping novels, impactful research papers, and influential editorials -- and they can do this without knowing how to spell. This doesn't make sense, of course, since writing a book requires a certain understanding of how to communicate effectively, an achievement demanding a much more clever tool.
Much like writing a book, writing software also demands a much more clever tool than a graphical, drag-and-drop interface. Developers understand more than how to write text in odd languages; they understand how to solve problems. Creating a graphical interface for building websites doesn't remove the necessity of a developer. On the contrary, it creates more jobs for more developers who specialize in building applications using a drag-and-drop interface.