Again, by your own description of the path you have chosen it is not a path everyone can take. Yet, the point you are grasping at requires this to be the case if actually are serious about expecting everyone else to dodge the usual social requirements for getting somewhere like you've gone. But it isn't. You also work in a very narrow niche of a single field. And you came of age at probably the best time in history to find an opportunity like you found in technology. Not everybody works in technology and society has other very important jobs that need to be done and respected too. It's also not everyone's dream to do whatever makes the most money. Your contribution to society and the necessity of that job for a society to function are not always measured in dollars. If you want to generalize while making rules about a society then you need to account for these, but you don't. You're a narrow mind in a narrow field that can't see outside of their privileged box.

Once you get a job as a software engineer then yes it is much easier to get another job without having had a degree in the first place. That's not the point we were talking about. We were talking about landing a job in the field.

I'm not invalidating what you accomplished and I think this is still you thinking I must hate you for it. Good for you, you worked hard. Now time to grow up and broaden your perspective to see the obvious truth that you were also very fortunate.