"Are we talking hiking here or are we talking climbing?"

For my part, there's not a clear binary choice, but a range of gray scale. Hiking on great trail, hiking on more sketchy trail --- perhaps with significant elevation gain. Then there's variations on scrambling as well as the various things people mean by the term "bushwhacking". And then there's straight climbing. Sometimes I'll be intending to do a "hike" but for whatever reason find that part of it has become more of a scramble. And I personally wouldn't be comfortable doing a long trip in footwear so delicate or otherwise unsuitable that I couldn't go off-trail for some distance if I needed to.

Recognizing now that this is a beginner thread (!), I'll stop here with just the general comment that some folks will use shoes for a lot of the above type of conditions where others might find boots recommended (or even required in some organized group situations), and that someone inexperienced in this aspect of hiking would do well to try out more aggressive use of shoes (or sandals or bare feet or whatever) in safe dayhike conditions where it's easy to adjust if problems are encountered.

Dang, that could come across as sounding like shoes (vs. boots) are a real expert or high-risk choice, and I don't mean that at all ...