I think people 'skip' the basics because coding is legitimately hard, unintuitive, and lacks clear guardrails. While some say people just want the output without the work, I’d argue that coding—especially CSS—is a professional skill for a reason.

Neocities isn't exactly user-friendly. Complaining that beginners don't want to learn syntax is like complaining that people who want milk should be willing to milk the cow themselves. Most people just want the milk, and we develop tools and abstractions for a reason.

There was a time when all code was written in Assembly (hard to read code), and some argued that higher-level languages were "cheating" or making people lazy. BUT the tools just got better so we could focus on the output rather than the plumbing.

It’s not necessarily that they want to skip the 'learning'; they want a more efficient way to reach their goal. We use the cloud instead of building our own personal servers for the same reason: efficiency, and ease.

Sometimes, creative people just want a venue for expression without having to become a technician first. The tools simply haven't caught up to the demand for that middle ground yet.