Remember Y2K?

Farhad Manjoo at Slate does and so do I. Take a read of his interesting article, this passage might get you thinking:

"After Y2K was over, American companies retained their taste for Indian programmers. "Outsourcing kept increasing well after the Y2K problem became a thing of the past," Mitra and Ranjan write. In this way, Y2K has parallels to the oil shortages of the 1970s, which helped popularize Japanese cars—a classic example of a temporary economic shock that produces a permanent change. Mitra and Ranjan, like many economists, are in favor of outsourcing and see Y2K as increasing the net benefit to American firms; people wary of the rise of the Indian IT industry (like many American programmers who are understandably worried about their job security) might feel otherwise."