Served as “flat files” - filesystem, object store, what have you. No server logic generating content, just passing around of strings and binary data. Files are the representation are the source of truth. Counter to a web app, where the content response is ephemeral and the “source of truth” is scattered across a writeable DB and recombinated (potentially) on every request.
Interesting question though, I (a web dev) just take the term for granted.
This is me, so much. Both my parents, my aunts and uncles, my grandparents. After I got my diagnosis, it’s like all of a sudden my family’s whole history of immigrant trauma snapped into relief.