The average person doesn't need to be able to cook a fancy souffle - but how about an omelet? Most chefs I know wish more people had basic cooking skills.
The world would be a much better place if everyone knew the basics of multiple disciplines and had some basic knowledge about how all the machines they use everyday work.
That being said, in the real world people don't give a shit, and the companies that are successful in any industry recognize and accept this fact.
Computer programming is - or should be regarded as - more basic, more fundamental a skill than the ability to use/build/maintain specialized machines. A toaster processes sliced bread; whereas a computer processes information, which is global, ubiquitous and open-ended in its application.
The ability to write a computer program is too broadly powerful across a whole swath of human endeavours to keep in the hands of professional programmers, in the same way that the ability to read and write was too powerful to keep in the hands of professional scribes.
Our present-day society is inconceivable without the advent of social literacy, starting in the 15th century and accelerating through the 18th and 19th centuries. If we allow programming to become a disciplinary cul-de-sac instead of spreading it as widely as possible, what potential future society are we cutting off?
Let's not care about companies, let's care about people, human beings. Is it better for your health and independent and well-being to know how to cook the food you eat or to just buy burgers?
Same for computers. Say you have kids, will you not at least try to push them toward controlling such important and intimate things as their computers or phones? Would you agree with them when they tell you they don't care how Facebook work, what info they have, what other choice are available? All these means they need to be computer literate. If they don't they will be slaves.
