We totally agree here -- these are two different jobs.
My point is that you can't tell that from the job title.
> And can we really classify a job where you literally spend most of your time learning how to do a job a "degree required" job?
Yes. There's a quantum leap between jobs where you're "learning on the job" trivial perturbations to things that hundreds of millions of other people already know and jobs where you're "learning on the job" stuff that no one / 10 other people know.
ALL jobs require learning on the job. Some jobs require you to learn stuff that's not possible to learn without already having a degree or two's worth of background knowledge. Some jobs require you to learn stuff any high schooler can learn. That is the difference between mid-tech and high-tech!
> There are always outliers. We have to be observing the typical or average case for this discussion to have any meaning.
Yes. And I'm pointing out that understanding that typical/average case is difficult for "Software Development" because the job title encompasses so many different types of jobs.