It boils down to him feeling superior to web developers, who are far beneath him and couldn't possibly program with other tools.

Actually, its the opposite. When you are no longer compatible to the workforce because you don't want waste all your time on the same basic literacy things over and over you start to feel extremely inferior when you cannot get a job.

But the fact the concerns of superiority come up so repeatedly just serves to illustrate how much insecurity is baked into the workforce. Confident people don’t worry about high confidence in other people.