<nettime> The age of Stitchers

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>]

This is something that has been identified in the tech field (namely 
computing machinery hardware and software.) I'm curious if the 
phenomenon is present in other fields, and if it was researched 
(pointers to papers appreciated.)
The state of the art and practice of the mainstream software and 
hardware engineering has substantially changed over the last decade or 
so, and exhibits dramatic stratification.
In general, re-use, standardization and such can be very useful for 
everyone. But something else is going on in the guise of these: 
practitioners in the field hardly do any 'engineering' any more. Whether 
it's hardware or software, there are 11, 17 or 31 (I like primes :) 
popular components. The names of these are widely known among 'experts', 
they are listed in resumes, and 'engineering' consists of stitching some 
combination of these into the product. Like building with Lego.
The practitioners are generally unable to replicate any of these bricks; 
it's too complicated, and it is done by someone else, in India or 
Russia, for Cisco, Broadcom, Intel, etc. Practitioners are then given 
these bricks to make their toys. They don't need to understand how to 
make them, nor all that they do. And their education and wages are cheaper.
The interesting part here is that OEM's that make these bricks establish 
firm grip on the infrastructure from which 'engineers' can never escape. 
This is considered normal.
Case in point: AMZN is lately providing *everything* - hardware, 
firmware, software, apps, backends - needed to make "Internet of Things" 
devices. The nominal manufacturer can decide on the name and the color. 
There are many other examples. The landscape is ruled and directed by 
decisions of very few.
Such division of labor - fundamental stuff done by megacorps, and 
cosmetics left to the field - creates tectonic shift in the knowledge 
distribution. RMS wrote a lot about this, but at that time engineers 
could do pretty much everything, so the case for FSF was strong. Todays 
engineers learn mostly stitching in schools.
Is there an equivalent phenomenon in non-engineering fields? I would 
naively say yes, as original writings, for example, on philosophy, 
politics and such, are extremely rare. Stitchers rule the field. The 
brick OEMs in these fields as well rule the scene.
Chto delat?

ps. embedded signal processing engineer wanted, alive
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