I'm agreeing with you that there is so much effort that goes into software beyond just the code. Just going from "something I can use" to "something everyone can use" has been a huge deal with my little Spotify-to-YTMusic app. I wrote it in an evening and transferred all my music. Since then I've probably put in 30 hours refining it, fixing it for other use cases, and supporting people trying to use it.

I am, thankfully, in a position where I can do that in my spare time.