How many years of experience do you have? I don't have a degree but it's literally never come up, and I've been working as a software engineer for two decades.
How do you know it has "never come up"? Because you've never been asked about it?
If people have passed on your profile completely for that reason -- then it has still "come up" on their side, even though of course never know that's the reason.
Besides, the vast, vast majority of job listings say "CS degree or comparable experience."
In the Anglo world I've literally never been asked. Not by employers, not by investors doing due diligence, nobody.
Of course it's still true that it might have an effect on some recruiter looking for a degree. Can't say I've ever made a decision to interview or not based on whether the person had a degree.
Arguably this is a good built-in filter for the candidate. In my experience for SE roles specifically, companies with such credentialism often have many other structural/corporate issues.
Reasonable people can disagree on this (i.e. there are people who do see value in college degrees, and that this is not automatically "credentialism"). But I do see the broader point you're making.