Honestly, there isn't, except for a small subset related to screen readers.
At one point there was a kind of hope that semantic tags would make web content easily machine-parseable, unlocking a bunch of meaningful content reuse somehow that better semantics would make possible. (Big data, ML and all that.)
The two canonical examples being that lists were important so software could extract meaning from list items, and not using tables for layout so software could trust tables actually had meaningfully tabular data.
But... that never really happened, it's not clear it ever will, and it doesn't benefit the content author directly anyways, so... yeah.
(Like you say, screen readers are the main thing, so use the tags and attributes that are important to screen readers, like buttons and alt text... but that's a very specific subset. A screen reader certainly doesn't care if you use a <div> or an <li> or a <td>.)
Edit: I stand corrected on my example, for <td> specifically I forgot <table> lets screen readers navigate vertically and also read column/row labels.
> A screen reader certainly doesn't care if you use a <div> or an <li> or a <td>.)
It absolutely does. Try firing up a screen reader before you make such comments spreading misinformation.
For example, it's maddening to see people now making tables out of flexbox grids and such. In a screen reader you can navigate a <table> in two dimensions (rows and columns). The flexbox variety completely breaks navigating up/down columns.
You deserve downvotes. Semantic HTML is a key part of making your website accessible for people with disabilities. Ignore it, and you shouldn't be making things for the web.
At one point there was a kind of hope that semantic tags would make web content easily machine-parseable, unlocking a bunch of meaningful content reuse somehow that better semantics would make possible. (Big data, ML and all that.)
The two canonical examples being that lists were important so software could extract meaning from list items, and not using tables for layout so software could trust tables actually had meaningfully tabular data.
But... that never really happened, it's not clear it ever will, and it doesn't benefit the content author directly anyways, so... yeah.
(Like you say, screen readers are the main thing, so use the tags and attributes that are important to screen readers, like buttons and alt text... but that's a very specific subset. A screen reader certainly doesn't care if you use a <div> or an <li> or a <td>.)
Edit: I stand corrected on my example, for <td> specifically I forgot <table> lets screen readers navigate vertically and also read column/row labels.