I'm speaking within the past 10+ years how houses are being built.
On the flat, concrete slab poured over screed stone tailings. No one uses compacted hard fill on residential builds anymore. No one uses piles and no one uses timber. They use a digger to excavate the footing, put in 2 bars of steel and pour the concrete. Then they may install 665 mesh steel (rebar) and pour concrete which makes up the slab. You might be lucky if they use the vibrator.
Rib Raft requires a different specification. Materials isn't the issue as the steel work gone into building the foundation is tied in - meaning the whole poured area has steel work is connected like a 'raft'. Super strong against earthquakes. But the problem is the amount of labour to construct could be 4 folds to conventional 100mm slab foundation as described above.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what kind of exterior finish the house has. If the geo-tech soil tests show the ground is soft and proned to earthquakes, then you require a foundation that is designed for it. If the gound is hard shingle / gravel base, then it might be overkill to go above the the standard.