I think that the whole idea of asking someone else to explain "where the fun is in coding" is somewhat of an oxymoron. If you cannot find the fun yourself, it is hard to believe that you will be able to find it by someone else telling you about it.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned anything to do with the structure of the internet. Suppose someone takes out all of the root DNS servers or the bgp system breaks down, or something similar. Even though there might not be any loss of life, this could cause tremendous amount of damage in other areas.
This is something I thought about a lot. I'm currently a grad student at a great school and even though I sometimes get frustrated with classes, I've never regretted it. There is a lot more to grad school than just taking classes and doing research.
For me, the main attraction and benefit of being in grad school was being immersed in an environment filled with smart people wanting to "do more". My school's heavy emphasis on entrepreneurship has also energized me about creating a startup. The caveat is that one must find a way to attend grad school for free (which actually isn't hard at all).