The "autonomy" being important for human motivation is part of old school management textbooks. The motivation was supposed to result of "autonomy, mastery and accountability" combination. For last 20 years, with move to agile, we have been loosing both "autonomy" and "accountability" parts. Frequently also mastery. We did gained predictability and there is less pressure then it used to be.
We lost agency over years.
> It's like that line from "The Incredibles"--if everyone is super, then no one is.
This sounds like sci-fi, only because there is no autonomy anymore in software development. But it used to be that you had some small part where you could make autonomous decisions, did some estimates and could feel in control of your own situation if lucky. The process had issues ... but you had more agency and did felt like "main character in your own situation".
We lost agency over years.
> It's like that line from "The Incredibles"--if everyone is super, then no one is.
This sounds like sci-fi, only because there is no autonomy anymore in software development. But it used to be that you had some small part where you could make autonomous decisions, did some estimates and could feel in control of your own situation if lucky. The process had issues ... but you had more agency and did felt like "main character in your own situation".