I really don't understand Tailwind. I heard great things about it, and then I tried it and it seemed like setting style="" on all elements, but with extra steps.

Did we go off semantic CSS and returned to setting properties on each element, or was I using it wrong?

You aren't using it wrong, the only thing tailwind does better than 99% of devs is having default values that both look nice and mesh together well.

Utility based CSS has been around as long as classes have, tailwind is just one iteration of that. GitHub use to have a utility css library as well before switching to their new design.

CSS is a little too low level for most web app design, Tailwind is a bit higher level and more concise than its CSS equivalent. It also has a bunch of sensible defaults for colors, sizes, spacing, and type.

If you're experienced with or like the way CSS works, and you didn't like Tailwind, then you were probably using it correctly.

> and it seemed like setting style="" on all elements, but with extra steps.

And extra benefits.

Generally more concise on the common usecase, but more importantly you can combine and use media queries, which can't be done with inline styles alone.