I think you hit the nail on the head. With all of the resources that are currently available on the internet, it is easier than ever for a non-technical person to learn enough about programming for them to piece together a programatic solution to a wide variety of problems.
In an age where many people spend 40+ hours per week in front of a computer screen, even a small marginal increase in a computer user's productivity could save them hundreds of hours a year. As a result, it seems like a completely reasonable investment of a non-technical person's time and energy to learn enough about programming to enable them to scrap together a program that allows them to accomplish simple tasks more efficiently.
Would a professional programmer be able to write better code more quickly? Of course. But would a person with zero programming knowledge even recognize when a particular task they are spending hundreds of hours each year manually performing could easily be automated? Probably not.
In an age where many people spend 40+ hours per week in front of a computer screen, even a small marginal increase in a computer user's productivity could save them hundreds of hours a year. As a result, it seems like a completely reasonable investment of a non-technical person's time and energy to learn enough about programming to enable them to scrap together a program that allows them to accomplish simple tasks more efficiently.
Would a professional programmer be able to write better code more quickly? Of course. But would a person with zero programming knowledge even recognize when a particular task they are spending hundreds of hours each year manually performing could easily be automated? Probably not.