Do you think it's about this; and the "scalability" of the software stuff confuses one part of the manufacturing (copypaste by distribution through people installing from internet) with another part of it (copypaste by programmers copypasting copypasta code to "manufacture" more apps)?
It seems like you have introduced a new notion of manufacturing as part of coding which I like, and is a way to make yourself disciplined; while at the same time given that coding has potential for "research" by individuals with not much means the manufacturing process can be itself improved greatly (new libraries or techniques or things like when WWW happened but needs externalities like ARPA hardware prior work), and that's what I think makes it exciting. We are basically teaching machines to understand language that is intuitive to us so we can make it do things people want, and new things people want that weren't possible earlier or were only done by people earlier can often only be gotten to by Kuhn-esque revolutions in the philosophy. We started with code, and either more people code or computers understand people more, or both and we meet in the middle.
To go with the trend; this feeling of "nothing new" in CS and engr-using-CS is nothing new, it's how science and engr-using-science has seemed to work if you look past the programmable machines. [1] "normal science" cycles with paradigm shifts have happened in all sorts of engineering-influencing research processes (often called "science," at least part of it). Its just that in CS the period-length of revolution-normal things is quick because of, among many things, increased empowerment of individuals. And to the extent that this empowers individuals that can afford programmable devices and learn somehow (see many kids in many parts of the world that don't have much means) or having their friends teach in social settings if unempowered (visit that rich friend's house play video games and accidentally learn from them to code), that is a normative-ethics motivation to "contribute to society," and often even empathy-ethics works out because kids coding can remind you of you coding as a kid or something.
The hope is that kids socialize across and often in spite of traditional barriers and spread the knowledge / empowerment; and while teaching them (fact-leaning) we learn from them about our own personal biases (which we can still teach but why not program-in perspectivism). In the end some may have personal ethics or motivation structures that cause them to way that sort of thing vs. personal allegience to a status quo, or through chance encounters happen to do it more.
Sorry about the philosophy rambling, I just sort of find it fun and similar to coding.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_science