So it's not long since I was a beginner, if indeed, I ever stopped being one.
I had a bridge camera, it went from a lovely wide angle lens to a love telephoto lens. I liked having the flexibility so that no matter what my situation was, I could fill the sensor with whatever I wanted to record. But I wanted a better sensor. Unlike a few beginners (but by no means all), I looked carefully and understood quickly that 'zoom' and 'focal length' might be used in the same sentence but aren't really describing the same thing. But more importantly, I recognised early that I wasn't going to be able to fill the frame of my new DSLR on long distance objects without spending thousands of pounds.
I went ahead and bought a Canon 600D, with the best value package I could find, which included the 18-55 and 55-250 kit lenses. I used them for about a year. I liked the 55-250 for visits to the local nature reserve. But, as expected, I found it frustrating when just 'wandering around the city' to get some shots because I had to switch lenses to photograph some stuff I wanted to. I wasn't focused on a single style of photography, and I certainly wasn't thinking 'I can frame all my shots at 35mm and then make them about more than just the object I find interesting'. I was very much of the mindset that the interesting thing should fill the frame.
I eventually bought a Tamron 18-270, and I loved it, used it all the time, for about another year. It meant no matter what I found interesting I could grab shots of it. Even if there were physical barriers in the way or I was forced to be really close to it. As I knew, and expected, the lens was not as sharp as even the kit lenses, at different focal lengths, and I wanted something sharp _as well_, and I never thought it would replace the 18-270, but I bought a Sigma 17-50, and it was _delicious_.
Utterly sharp, superb contrast, great quality to the resulting images. And then I started to learn that sometimes you don't have to fill the frame with the interesting thing, sometimes the scene in which your thing lives is also interesting. Because the focal length forced me to think differently.
I've changed cameras and lenses several times since then.
I would posit beginners use those 'travel zooms' because they don't want to carry multiple lenses, don't mind a bit of softness, still get better images than they would have on a bridge, and enjoy filling the frame with the subject they're interested in and can't always get close enough or far away enough to achieve that by footwork alone (or, sometimes, they're with family, kids of friends who don't want to walk another 100 yards to get the shot).
For some people, the travel zoom, and long zoom will be all they ever want because it suits what they're trying to achieve. Nothing wrong it it.
