Being even somewhat conversant in some of the more popular protocols is also like a superpower that the newbs don't really have, too. The ability to use telnet

Being even somewhat conversant in some of the more popular protocols is also like a superpower that the newbs don't really have, too. The ability to use telnet or nc to answer the question "aside from any other piece at any level in the stack that could be going wrong, can I even talk to the HTTP server" helps you eliminate a lot of possibilities about what's going on when troubleshooting something.