I think it's likely we will see big platforms (newspapers etc) want to federate their content directly using activitypub. It sounds like a messy task, but if you can specialize in offering clutter-free activitypub support for existing platforms I'm sure there's money to be made.

I mean software development as a whole, probably. Just knowing how to code in a somewhat larger org can open up job opportunities later on.

Fediverse specific....probably not. My cynical side thinks that most lose money/spend much more than we take in from the fediverse. Most projects are just passion projects with very little budget. But dont believe me, try it out! I want to be wrong on this.

I'm betting on the Fediverse, just like I did on Reddit all those years ago.

But, you are currently in a hype machine since you are on Lemmy. As someone who develops with ActivityPub now, there is not a big market for it at the moment.

I expect it will grow, especially as identity management standardizes (I'm actually presenting about this at a conference a bit later today), but it will likely take time.