Spiders are also useful. My exgf lived in a farm and had dozens of harmless spiders in the ceiling of her bedroom that ate all mosquitoes. It nuanced my view on spiders.
Only very old webs are ... dirty.
I'm pretty good at identifying the dangerous spiders now (i.e. distinguishing brown recluse from wolf), but it took several instances of trapping the spider under a glass and then breaking out my cell phone and looking at lots of pictures.
If your area has lots of kinds of dangerous spiders then it might be more of a pain, though.
I think what the parent comment was worried about was painful bites more-so than death (though that's also worrying).