> People stopped wearing suits at work, even for interviews, because the signaling value of a suit is zero.

In fact it's become an anti-signal in software; people look at you funny. I actually failed an interview once because I wore a suit.

Yeah, outside of finance, it would seem like it's the opposite, signaling lower status and conformity.

Nowadays that's just not the case. Between credible certifications, blogs, gihub portfolios, open source projects, etc - I can get a TON of signal on you that would be more valuable than your college background.

But this is just a tiny subset of jobs though.

There are some industries where suits are still regularly worn, though even in these fields (law, banking) it is less common than before. In Silicon Valley, lawyers only wear suits when going to court or to depositions.