Your first statement was that you need a degree to get a job. Having a degree gives you access to more jobs, but you can get a job just fine without a degree.
Being "well-versed in computers" is not the same thing as being a valuable programmer. If you are a valuable programmer and you still can't find a job without a degree, you're doing something wrong (what you're doing wrong varies individually, of course).
I have no degree, and have never gone more than a month without a job offer while actively looking for a position. One time it took two months to find a position with acceptable compensation, but I'd received a low-ball offer in the first month.
What exactly is a "valuable programmer"? It's about as vague a notion as being "well versed in computers".
Edit : essentially, you just re-defined bar without providing any real context.
Taken a step further (and perhaps in a different job market), someone might say "oh, well being a valuable programmer isn't the same as being a Rockstar programmer..."
The key lies in the word "valuable", which is completely situational and vague, whereas "programmer" is not.
I don't know exactly what a valuable programmer is, but I'll give you numbers regarding my situation, so that we talk about concrete things.
I do Python/Django work and I have 3 years of experience. I have a GitHub profile which I show when applying for jobs and my profile shows that I've made 359 contributions in the last year. I have a LinkedIn profile through which details the technologies I use and the experience I have.
Since the start of the year, I think I've been contacted by 10 recruiters with job proposals. I chose to work remotely though, with clients outside of my country.
A valuable programmer, in this context, is someone who seeks to get paid by a company to write code and would have a significant (as far as individual employees go) net-positive influence on that company's financials.
So returning to the statement "...you can get a job just fine without a degree..." comes with an important caveat.
Namely, that you can get a job "just fine" if you're a programmer of sufficient talent and knowledge to be able to be a net-positive influence on a company's financials.
YMMW, but that's a relatively high bar. Higher, at least, than the ease that "just fine" (IMHO) implies.
I'm pretty sure the concept of employment in general is that any employee is going to supply ample net financial upside to the employer. If you have the skills to be employable as a programmer, you should not need a college degree to find work.
