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Computers are not like cars. Cars have a well-defined purpose, for which they have been ruthlessly optimised. Computers are more like writing. Writing is a means for expressing and conveying ideas (and here's the key bit: any ideas); computers are machines for executing instructions (and here's the key bit: any instructions). Saying that only a few people need to code today is like saying that only a few people needed to read and write in the 1500s.

A poor analogy and geeky wishful thinking, IMO.

Computer programming is not like writing in any way. Writing is a facility of language and a way for us to leave behind our thoughts in the past and disseminate them to others. A computer program on the other hand describes a process on a machine. They are two completely different patterns of thought. Language is literature, poetry, ideas, information, and a tool for immortalizing ourselves. Programming has been around for a mere half-century and already many of the programs that brought us here are forgotten and interesting only to a select few. While I like to read programs myself, I hardly find it an essential skill (and some days I'm afraid to admit, I wish I didn't understand it at all).

I'm afraid a "mass-algorate," society would not be nearly as useful as a fully literate society. It's a skill that is not as generally useful to the human condition. Not yet anyway. We're still working on the numeracy part which has been building for a much longer time (and yet I'm afraid we might have missed the opportunity to reach mass-numeracy). Until such a time that a computer is as ubiquitous as paper and pen or a stick and some sand -- I think algorithms and programming will be skills relegated to a privileged, nerdy class of people.

edit: spelling

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