"Programmers are interchangeable" seems to come up quite a lot, but I don't think we have a monopoly on it: celebrities (where it is the individual's brand that sells) are the only example that aren't interchangeable that comes to mind.
One thing that may disadvantage us is that programmers are still one big blob: we don't define our specialities strongly enough to the outside world (or to ourselves). For example, teachers have their subjects: one might consider two maths teachers interchangeable but not a maths teacher and a French teacher, and that is obvious to a non-teacher. You and I might see the absurdity with swapping a web programmer for an embedded safety-critical systems programmer, but I don't think it is at all obvious to the outside world.
One thing that may disadvantage us is that programmers are still one big blob: we don't define our specialities strongly enough to the outside world (or to ourselves). For example, teachers have their subjects: one might consider two maths teachers interchangeable but not a maths teacher and a French teacher, and that is obvious to a non-teacher. You and I might see the absurdity with swapping a web programmer for an embedded safety-critical systems programmer, but I don't think it is at all obvious to the outside world.