Are frontenders doomed by low- or no code platforms?

Low- or no code platforms have momentum. How magical is the idea to create an app, deploy and run it without having to deal with pesky developers, consultancies, investors and the like. Start immediately implementing your idea and gather feedback quicker as ever before, without writing a single line of code. But, in favor of (mainly) frontend development. Are we, as frontenders, doomed then? Do we need to look for another profession by the time low- or no code platforms come widely available? Does the job security alert starts ringing?

Short answer: not entirely.

For now, most of the low- or no code platforms can be pretty costly. For trying out small stuff it’s ok, but when you want to scale up, you get the awkward feeling you’re vendor-locked-in. But let’s fast forward to a future where there are multiple affordable platforms available, maybe even an open source variant. What will the effects be for business?

• Starting projects probably will look at low- or no code platforms first instead of looking for a frontend developer to create a user interface. So less opportunities there, especially in the area of apps where the focal point is not the user interface.
• Since it’s easy (and hopefully cheap) to create an app as a citizen developer, there will be even more apps available (with a shorter life perhaps) then there are already available.
• Pipelines for building, quality assurance and deploying apps most likely come with the low- or no code platform; so unless there’s an option to host your own low- or no code pipeline, this kind of plumbing is not as important as it is today for the client side code.
• Business models will shift: instead of paying for the development costs of an app, there will be most likely a monthly fee for using the low- or no code platform as well as third party API’s. This is nice since this lowers the threshold for creating an app tremendously. Costs increase when the amount of users increases.

What does this in detail mean for the role as frontend developer as we know now?

• Most of the work shifts from client side development to gateways, middleware, integration and persistency.
• The low- or no code editors need to be created/ maintained, as well as the building blocks that can be used by the citizen developer. 
• Developing stand-alone apps will focus more on performance heavy apps or apps with very specific user interfaces (for which there are no building blocks available) and will be more of a niche market.
• Lots of work will be in building (mesh-up) services for integration with other services or low- and no code platforms, most likely with configuration pages.
• Gateways for handling traffic (from low- or no code platforms), including authentication and authorization are required and essential for the API-only business models to succeed.
• Metatooling for (business) analyses and reporting continue to be of great relevance (but could perhaps be created in low- or no code platforms as well)

So even if low- or no code platforms take a leap forward, there seems to be work enough for the frontend developer, though the name 'frontend' might be changed to something more fitting.