Reminder that the meta (2026 edition) [v2]

Quick context: I am relatively new to this and trying to find my footing.

Maybe an unpopular opinion but here we go. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, mods please remove if it is not. This came up at a meetup recently and the room was split, so curious what the broader community thinks.

Quick context: I am relatively new to this and trying to find my footing. There is a lot of conflicting advice online and most of it is from 2019. I want to write something more comprehensive about this later but starting with a quick post to gather thoughts.