In an essay on wired.com Dylan Tweney posits that we have reached the age of the "Undesigned Web." Since content and design are coded separately, content can essentially free float, allowing users to access it from various media striped of its original layout and appearance. Maximal accessibility equals minimal design, and Tweney notes the emergence of "clean, uncluttered, wide-format layouts" that translate well across devices and readers. For example the above screen shots: the first is of the essay as reinterpreted for improved readibility through Safari's built-in reader, the second shows the text in its original presentation on wired.com. (The Safari reader increased the font size and switched to a serif.)
So if the emphasis isn't on form but function, does that really mean the web designer is irrelevant? Probably not. That uncluttered initial iteration of the work still needs to be aesthetically appealing and, as Tweney writes, "21st century content also demands good information design," in order that the ultimate analyzers of the work—computers—understand and correctly transpose the information. Which basically means that even if all the necessary tech know-how eludes them, designers must at least strive to be jack-of-all-trade thinkers in order to take full advantage of our rapid fire information age.