"A commodity can only compete on location and price, and location doesn't really get you much on the Internet."
I don't know why the author thinks PHP coding is somehow different from every other kind of programming, and that there aren't huge differences between programmers (we're talking orders of magnitude) as far as speed of output and code quality go.
Yeah, Giles seems kind of confused about how the PHP ecosystem works.
Those "commodity" PHP programmers who flood the market with insanely low bids? As a PHP programmer, they are not your problem. They are your client's problem, one that you can charge money to solve. Because it's really hard for a client to find good developer talent among that huge crowd. Lord knows it can't be done by screening resumes for keywords. So once you (the aspiring PHP programmer) have done a bit of work and a bit of networking, and a handful of established PHP folks have met you and filed your name in their contact lists under good PHP talent (a club that is really not that hard to join) you're likely to start getting leads. Leads who are willing to pay your price just to avoid having to screen another 5,000 resumes.
Meanwhile, that army of "commodity" programmers will be out there, energetically growing the market for your services by bringing lots and lots of new PHP-powered sites online. Every blogger who installs Wordpress, and every school and church and magazine and music label that goes online with a basic Drupal site, is a potential future customer.
Of course, just because PHP work pays decently and is easy to find doesn't mean you'll enjoy it. There's a lot of pain involved in working with PHP, particularly other people's PHP. (I ameliorate the pain somewhat by sticking strictly to Drupal, which has higher coding standards and a better defined, more modular structure than the average PHP newbie's code.) But the work is certainly out there.
I believe he didn't think much, but just wanted to rant.
It's easy to see that an interference from the attribute of one good to the attribute of another is usually not sound. For example, just because bricks are commodities doesn not mean everybody is able to build proper houses.
Also, if we follow his assumptions and logic, any language that would have won the popularity contest, would have been a "looser" by his definition. For nearly everybody would code in the most popular language, therefore reducing prices for programming jobs in that language.
But, of course, this logic is also flawed. For it assumes that supply of programmers increases while demand remains more or less constant, which consequently leads to decreasing prices for programming jobs. However, the popularity of a language may also increase demand for programming jobs. Depending on the relative effects, (average) prices may decrease or increase.
I don't know why the author thinks PHP coding is somehow different from every other kind of programming, and that there aren't huge differences between programmers (we're talking orders of magnitude) as far as speed of output and code quality go.