If almost everyone can learn programming for free, why is the salary relatively very high?

Because almost no one cares about programming.

Don’t get me wrong. Everyone looooooves the idea of sitting around all day and pushing buttons and making bank. Everyone wants to try.

But no one wants to stick with it.

It is impossible to be a good programmer unless you are very passionate about the craft. You have to take great joy in seeing your concepts and inventions come to life.

Most people don’t have the patience. They want results now now now. Code requires patience and passion.

Learning to code well takes years. Maybe even decades.

If someone is truly patient and passionate, they can become a world class programmer with just a few hundred bucks worth of books, and a cheap laptop.

Hell, they might not even need the books, if they have a stable Internet connection.

But most people try to do it for the money. All these people fail and go do something easier.

When you are happy eating, sleeping, and breathing the process of learning to program, you have a chance at becoming a good programmer.

And the money is a nice side effect.

The really good, the really expensive, programmers don’t do it for the money.

They do it because they don’t have a choice.

They do it for the joy in it.