As a programmer, it's tempting to think that if we were still operating under 1950's social norms, I'd be the guy wearing a suit, but realistically I'd probably be the guy wearing coveralls with my name stitched on the front.
Maybe part of the problem with dress codes is that we (or most of us) aren't the self-employed white-collar professionals who have much to gain by looking successful to their customers. We're actually the blue-collar assembly-line factory workers. No one outside our immediate circle of co-workers has any reason to know or care what we look like.
This. Gone are the days of twenty-tiered hierarchies. And as companies outsource, disrupt, and automate into tiny modules of CTOs/CEOs selling products, it becomes less and less important as social structures break down in this gig economy. I think the future will view suit and ties as just another individual expression of taste among the sea of new ideas competing for paying customers - who may or may not really care how you look.
Maybe part of the problem with dress codes is that we (or most of us) aren't the self-employed white-collar professionals who have much to gain by looking successful to their customers. We're actually the blue-collar assembly-line factory workers. No one outside our immediate circle of co-workers has any reason to know or care what we look like.