> Something about CORS and the resources out there makes newcomers think that it's something the client has to do differently
I think that "something" is the fact that the client does the blocking. Generally the servers are perfectly willing to provide the data. Heck, if you sniff the packets, you could even look at the data blocked by CORS (assuming you're working around TLS). It's especially confusing at first that tools like curl work no problem, while browser block everything.