Who's going to teach our "stuff"? and who's going to learn it?

Is this the right forum for this? We all know of the imminent and unwelcome restructuring facing us. Where does the future lie for this discipline, or can we even define what our discipline is? We're constantly reminded now that our HE degrees are products, our students are customers, and so what are we, retailers? Compared to many other "products" in this HE marketplace our products are relatively unpopular despite the fact that there are fewer universities providing what we do compared to a decade ago.
I constantly struggle to explain what it is we do and can therefore understand why students have difficulty in placing it in context. Perhaps a business school isn't the right environment but then neither is a computing department, or it doesn't seem to be, and we don't fit into education or anywhere else.
What is the long term future for this discipline, whatever it is?

It's St. Patrick's day (not St. Paddy's, or St. Pat's or Paddy's day) so I'm off for Guinness in the local.