Yeah I definitely sit strongly in the former camp (that is, navigation should be in the same tab for anything that is your content).
When linking externally or to something that isn't yours, I feel it makes sense to go to a new tab then.
> someone did make a claim, that I was unable to verify, that modern users don’t use the back button and therefore relying on it to allow users to find their way back is unacceptable
I think this person is projecting their own experiences. Would be interesting to see the impact that mobile browser experiences have brought to these interactions, but for instance Android has a literal OS wide back button. I think that claim is a pretty far stretch.
When linking externally or to something that isn't yours, I feel it makes sense to go to a new tab then.
> someone did make a claim, that I was unable to verify, that modern users don’t use the back button and therefore relying on it to allow users to find their way back is unacceptable
I think this person is projecting their own experiences. Would be interesting to see the impact that mobile browser experiences have brought to these interactions, but for instance Android has a literal OS wide back button. I think that claim is a pretty far stretch.