I completely agree with your perspective. While traps can be fun and occasionally effective, relying too heavily on them can lead to bad habits, especially for beginners or players trying to improve their overall understanding of the game.
Instead of focusing on memorizing traps, it’s much more beneficial to work on foundational principles like controlling the centre, developing your pieces efficiently, and ensuring king safety. If your opponent avoids the trap, you're often left in a worse position, as you mentioned, which can snowball into a losing game.
Traps are better suited as a supplement to learning broader strategic concepts rather than as a primary focus. They can be good for recognizing patterns or punishing blunders, but only if your general play is solid. Thanks for raising this—it’s a good reminder for players to prioritize fundamentals over shortcuts!
I have been watching videos online claiming that making a specific move will win you 80-90% of games, then you finish the video and forget everything you saw, your opponent plays something slightly different and it throws you off, putting you in a losing position. These videos just make you greedy for an early win, and usually put you in a worse position than just developing the knights and bishops in the opening. I have found them to be unhelpful.