I would still recommend that people start with black and white pictures, or at least spend some serious time on it sometime early in studying to make photographs. Darkroom skills per se have little to do with it. I would also recommend that aspiring painters spend some time making black and white photos, charcoal drawings, or the like.

Learning to see and think about the lightness relationships in a picture is a very valuable skill for color photography which is easier to learn when trying to make black and white pictures because there are fewer distractions and fewer choices to make.

> I haven't seen any material since the digital age took over recommend that photographers start with B&W.

I am not super familiar with recent introductory photo courses/books/etc. Have you examined many of those?

Yes, all of your more traditional mediums will start with black and white for the same reason that color is vastly more complex. No one should start to paint in color until they've got a good foundation on just getting shapes correct.

While I haven't taken any formal classes in photography, I started learning around 2000 which is about the time digital started taking over. I started with film, then quickly moved to digital. None of the digital materials I used ever recommended starting with B&W. And the more formal classes I've looked at (but not taken) don't appear to start with B&W either. At the very least, they cover a lot of color stuff, where the older film classes only covered B&W, color was considered very advanced.

I honestly think B&W photography is actually harder than color when talking digital. That's because the scene you see has color in it, and it can be tough to imagine what shapes will be dominant when converted to B&W.