The fact is, computer service as we knew it at one time is dead. The conditions and the environment has changed, and unless you have a ton of enterprise clients that are supporting the majority of your business costs, it is hard to make a living at it. If you are a freelance IT person it is likely you are working for temp service/s, finding work on BBS sites, poor, in debt, or all four. Some Mom and Pop stores have been able to stay open based on a fairly large amount of repeat business, but usually if you fix the machine right, it will be a long time before you see them again. There just aren't that many people that have complicated and dire enough problems that they would need to pay one to take care of things. Not enough to be counted on as a steady income at-least.
Generally speaking, you can buy a computer and just keep adding things to it until it becomes too full or too broken, and then go buy a new one. It used to be that one needed help to build a computer and install stuff on it. For the most part today, most people that need powerful machines either buy them from Amazon or similar, or they build them on their own. With Google and YouTube there is not much the person of average intelligence couldn't setup or do on a computer or related; reasonably.
So, things being as they are, what do you need the IT guy for. He now has to go get a job at a company that can support thousands of users and get paid a lot less than he would have 20 years ago by opening up his/her own store.
This is not to say that people that specialize in technology aren't useful, skilled, or necessary. Or that one couldn't open up a shop and do well, just that it isn't as easy as it once was, the specifics have changed. The market has become smaller, many people are too poor, and still more just are not going to see enough value to pay for help. In the enterprise and small business space there is a lot of noise and it is very crowded. It is not enough to simply design web-sites, build computers, or install operating systems anymore.
If people were able to work on their own cars, without ensuring a catastrophe or death, they would do that at the same frequency. This is a bit harder and generally more expensive then it once was when a tuneup solved most problems, this is also changing fast. Perhaps at some point, with 3D printing and similar technologies, we will see the death of the auto dealer and other similar consumer sale companies. If you can just purchase a variety of raw materials and actually produce the product on your own, inexpensively, and consistently most people will likely choose that option.
As technology moves forward it is obviously going to adversely affect some industries. What is important is how we respond to these challenges.
Change is part of any successful system and must be dealt with; the sooner the better.
One way that the tech industry has continued to evolve is through the creation of the tech consultant. In an effort to save the mid-level skill and experience positions, by the professionals themselves. Similar to the way radio and entertainment personalities have transferred to the pod-casting platform as radio stations, newspapers and other forms of traditional media have been eroding.
This has been a great start, but we shouldn't see this as the limit to the transition, rather a stepping stone to the next step.
In order to employ people you need to be in a position to fix a problem. This is not to say that you should build in externalities that force the problem to continually replicate it's self. There still needs to be a concerted effort to clearly estimate market-size, demand, and possible scaling issues. It is impossible to plan for every eventuality, but we can try.
You can not force a particular technology to stay relevant. So you need to be far more diverse than one was once forced to be. This is no easy task and shouldn't be seen as something that is just going to be apparent from an initial survey.
This is a good position for the nerd to be in, since they are in their element. For the average Joe, this may prove to be a challenge, but then again they probably should choose their career path according to their skills and interests.
In order to transition to new areas of technology you have to be flexible -- not in the dirty way, thought that may help in certain circles -- and find joy in the technical details of a project, though you may not be passionate about the content. This is true in everything, but based on the amount of time you tend to spend with the content in tech, it is especially important to identify things you may not be able to stay focused on or work with creatively.
This is basically a verbose way of saying that you shouldn't necessarily limit yourself based on your dogma, experiences, or interests. Some of us tend to do this as an almost defensive response.
Also, it is important to stay apprised of what is happening in industries that you may be abstractly connected to. For instance reading avionics publications and white papers even though you work in web design. Since there are applications for certain aspects of web technology in the aircraft and marine sector. Ignoring this parallels may not necessarily hurt your chances of maintaining a good career, though you never know, you may also just learn something unique to one industry that you can use to make yourself invaluable in another.
Lastly, expand your interests in other completely unrelated areas. Both for the networking possibilities and to make sure that your concepts and ideas don't become a victim of the environment they were conceived in.
Studying history, sports and rock climbing for instance may lead you to discover a way you can implement a service to aid people in these areas. Whether it be an actual technology related improvement, or if the information simply aids in your ability to connect with people socially, it is worth the time investment.
It is important to remember and be comfortable with allowing change to come in time, and to allow your ultimate concept of self to be detached from what you are working on.
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