This seems to have been a recent change. On desktop, the friends list is now collapsed by default.

The current website flow has been annoying for ages on the basis of this issue: https://feedback.vrchat.com/website/p/please-redirect-vrchatcom-to-vrchatcomhome-if-im-logged-in

But regardless, 99.999% of the time, all I try to do with the website is see who's online to see if I'm even going to bother getting on. And now I have one more click in the way of that for no reason. Please just make it not do that :)