Fish sauce is not supposed to be added to the point that you can taste the fishy taste, you do get that right? If you’ve added enough to impart fishy taste, you’ve added way too much.

Not quite true. Lots of Thai dishes use a tonne of fish sauce and even shrimp paste in their dishes. They even make side dish dipping sauce (Nam Jim Jaew) that's like basically 50% fish sauce.

No, people have different sensitivity to it. Many people experience Vietnamese fish sauce as a strong “rancid fish” character that is not at all subtle in all traditional recipes that use it. It isn’t “using too much”, it is “using any at all”.

I imagine it is like the people who are sensitive to cilantro, thinking it tastes like soap.

I've used fish sauce as an alternative to anchovy paste for caeser salad dressing which is heavily defined by a fishy taste.

I don't think your idea of 'fishy taste' is the same as theirs.

Some people are just more sensitive to certain smells and flavors than others, especially if they didn't have previous exposure to them.

I could not taste the fishy taste myself but my partner can. It varies by person how sensitive they are.

Right? It's there to add a layer of depth and savoury umami

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