I was thinking on this a bit today and I realized that we're actually a little bit better off in the software world, since good software can be copied infinitely. So well written operating system kernels, server applications, libraries, etc. can have a huge impact on the overall software landscape, regardless of how few people contributed code.

But even so, there is still far too much code out there which is the culmination of mountains of mediocrity. It is rather frightening to think about, considering that everything these days relies on software.