You're absolutely right. It took me years to spoon feed myself web development while on the clock. I don't think there's a proper path forward for learning HTML

You're absolutely right. It took me years to spoon feed myself web development while on the clock. I don't think there's a proper path forward for learning HTML and everyone has different opinions. But learning about WCAG should come right after learning HTML and CSS. Study BEM and a CSS library. Then basic Javascript or framework basics follow by CSS and JS molecular design principals with JSON and fetching. Then apply HTML semantics to write user actor tests. Anything I missed it's because I still haven't learned it so yes, it's a crazy world.