If having an unrelated degree on the resume puts those people into the "consider" bucket automatically, that is also the wrong approach.

To be honest, I can see requiring a degree for certain positions. But given the work most software devs are doing, I'd be happy to consider 4 years work experience. The number of times I need someone to invert a binary tree so far is 0, but the number of times I've needed someone to build some basic CRUD functionality following a UX spec is too numerous to mention. I don't need my degree to do the latter; I don't need to hire a degreed person to do it either. And even things that a degree might help with (recognizing an O(n^2) implementation when an O(n) is available) are lessons you can learn pragmatically by doing (i.e., having senior engineers point out issues in code review).

Think about it. 20 years ago? They were hired in simpler times, when people weren't even sure if the internet was going to be a big thing yet and if anyone could even make money off of it.

That probably wouldn't fly as well today or going forward as the field matures. Get your CS degree.

Given that we can expect a rising degree of risk adversity and narrowmindedness as the tech industry ages into something resembling other major industries, it would probably be a good idea for the readers to take xwdv's advice even if they disagree with the ethos behind it.