The frustration with information technology (IT) is that we need IT professionals as much as we need automobile mechanics and lawyers. There is a legitimate, economic, professional need for people to make our computers work, to figure out how to make them work better, and to manage our data.

     The sad reality is that the realm of legitimate IT only has room for a small fraction of the community currently working in it. The difference between user expectations and reality, the gap between promise and performance, the perception arbitrage, is the foundation of post-modern IT livelihood.