i absolutely hate how the modern web just fails to load if one has javascript turned off. i, as a user, should be able to switch off javascript and have the site work exactly as it does with javascript turned on. it’s not a hard concept, people.
but you ask candidates to explain “graceful degradation” and they’ll sit and look at you with a blank stare.
Blame the ui frameworks like react for this. It’s normalized a large cross-section of devs not learning anything about how a server works. They’ve essentially grown up with a calculator without ever having to learn long division.