That's partly because by somewhere in their 30s, a lot of the good programmers aren't working for someone else on salary any more. They're working freelance and picking their gigs, or they've founded their own business(es), or they've specialised and now do contract work with a combination of programming and industry-specific knowledge and skills.

In each case, they are probably earning at rates much higher than almost any salaried employee at almost any employer. Notice that in all of these scenarios the rates you can charge are based on real value generated, which doesn't have a glass ceiling the way wages usually do.

Good programmers who are still working for someone else as a full-time software developer at 40 probably have their own reasons for choosing that career path. Those reasons will often mean they aren't particularly looking to move either, and if they are, they're not going to do it by sending out numerous CVs to different employers the way a new grad does.

Who do you think is creating those modern programming languages, kid? :-)

Have you considered applying Occam's razor here? Maybe your hiring process sucks. Maybe the compensation and conditions you're offering simply aren't good enough to attract older developers who are any good. Are these theories more or less likely than entire generations of developers who presumably once had that enthusiasm and aptitude you seem to see in new grads mysteriously becoming incompetent and unmotivated a decade or three later?

I always make it even simpler, by citing my Greedy Bastard Policy regardless of what anyone does.

Problem solved.

You continue to make the same assumption but apparently still without any hard data to support it.

You asked how sites are able to choose not to use Google. I gave you several significant alternative sources of traffic, any one of which might generate more traffic for some sites than search engines.

Whether or not you choose to believe that some sites do in fact generate most of their traffic in those other ways and would continue to do so if Google disappeared tomorrow is obviously up to you. However, whatever assumptions you choose to make won't change the real situation for those sites or make them any more reliant on Google's preferences for their effectiveness.

Seriously, how is Yahoo still a thing, anyway? The last time they were actually useful was in the '90's!

There are a bunch of tablets on Amazon right now with Z3735G (which I assume is about the same if not better as the Z3735F) for less than $100.

They come (of course) with battery, probably charger, screen (of course) and so on. How is this stupid stick "cheap" for $100-$150?

You mean, like SONY?

Mayhap this explains the Fermi Paradox.

You implicitly assume that sites get most of their traffic from any search engine. Plenty of sites don't. Sites get traffic from paid advertising (on ad-supported sites, social networks, physical media, and so on). Sites get traffic because people already know what they need (public services with widely known addresses, for example). Intranet sites obviously don't rely on public search engines. And of course there's old-fashioned word of mouth advertising, and its new high-tech counterparts like hyperlinks on related sites and social media.

Of the commercial projects I currently work on -- and there are several, because I do freelance/consultancy work -- I don't think any gets the majority of its visitors from search engines, and in some cases if Google disappeared tomorrow you'd hardly notice on the bottom line.

Your search engine might be. Apparently the most successful search engine in the world thinks its users want content with good/appropriate presentation more than content that isn't as well/appropriately presented. And they're probably right.

I'd be the first to agree that Google shouldn't get to dictate how the Web works and that sometimes Google or at least some its employees appear to be extremely arrogant in assuming they are every webmaster's #1 priority. The reality is that if you're running a site that doesn't depend primarily on Google for traffic, you can and should implement whatever works best for you and your visitors, regardless of what Google wants or says.

However, if you're relying on Google's service for most/all of your visitors to find your site at all, you have to play by their rules if you want the best treatment from them. This is the basic principle of SEO, and it's as old as search engines themselves.