> Yes, the web has grown complex beyond all reason and if you want to make a real state-of-the-art web app today you'll have to use an absurdly deep stack of tools.
The absurdly deep stack of tools is the reason why the web has grown complex, not the solution to it. If front-end devs applied a bit of fucking YAGNI every now and then instead of churning out tutorial #193859812 on how to get set up in 10 minutes with a WXYZFooBarHyperCSSJS stack then get completely brick walled a few months into your project because now you're committed to tech that would take 15 years of study to actually understand, then front end would be perfectly fine.
The absurdly deep stack of tools is the reason why the web has grown complex, not the solution to it. If front-end devs applied a bit of fucking YAGNI every now and then instead of churning out tutorial #193859812 on how to get set up in 10 minutes with a WXYZFooBarHyperCSSJS stack then get completely brick walled a few months into your project because now you're committed to tech that would take 15 years of study to actually understand, then front end would be perfectly fine.