I don't think most people creating websites today have an accurate assessment of "user expectations". Often I'll visit a site that has a gigantic video playing, with some obscure symbols, that doesn't even work on all my devices. Or if I have JS turned off, a blank page.

I'm building things the same way as I did at around 2000, and my creations are just as relevant today. Most of the fancy JS stuff we could do in the '90s. The new stuff is not about basic websites, but how some new additions of HTML5 work. Most websites do not need those though, and if they do, then you learn those specific things.