In article , Neil
wrote:

Skills can be become outdated, and no longer needed. Sometimes a skill can
be
used in different ways and still serve a purpose even when something
replaces
the major usage of the skill.

Lots of skills have fallen away from photography, developing film, light
metering, manual focusing just to name a few. With new tools that replace or
do these things for you and with a better end result, the skill is obsolete.

Developing film hasn't fallen away from those who still shoot film.

very few people still shoot film. almost none, in fact.

Perhaps many users find the results of auto-focus to be superior to
their ability to manual focus, but that isn't universal. In fact, except
for simple scenes, manual focus can be faster and more accurate.

nope. autofocus is faster and more accurate than any human could ever
possibly hope to do in almost every case, particularly when tracking
moving subjects.

The
same can be said for metering; how one wants the scene to appear is
subjective, and one with the requisite skills can often make the
decisions to accomplish that without chimping or taking a hundred shots.

autoexposure does not prevent anyone from making decisions.

So the question is - if the end result is better and more importantly;
faster
and more efficient, is there any value to the skill in itself, or was it
just
needed because there was no better way to do it before?
"Better" is subjective; did one get the result they were after or not?
Faster and more efficient depends on the skills of the users. If one
takes 100 shots of a scene, at some point any time saved shooting will
be more than offset during editing, and even then they may not get what
they were after.

anyone who takes 100 shots hoping that one will turn out good is not
relying on their own skills and would greatly benefit from technology
to help them.

These are just a few reasons that I see distinct differences between the
kinds of users in terms of technology "replacing" skills.

the difference is that some people fear technology while others embrace
it.