Drew Hamlett I just created an account in medium.com just to like your post. In my opinion too 90% of websites do not require all the baggage of any javascript framework. First they create problems and they try to solve those problems. At work we use angularjs, fantastic code modularization, segregation of responsibility of code (with a language that does not compile and does not complain!). We really didn’t have html left, it became all templates and each with their own scopes. We have invented new issues like javascript not compiling (node! grunt! 10 different platform dependent executables). Now to even one field we need to mess with 10 different files, look at 20 different places. React or angular is not good for highly efficient complex javascript webapps like games nor is that bloat required by most simple websites.

This is not just a javascript story. Even in server side, I am into java. Java performs almost as good as c++ in real low level. But since there is option to abuse, people have created spring (supposedly lightweight), javaEE. These is scaling everywhere horizontal vertical. Ultimately all the data acquired from scalable distributed servers goes to single DB where there has been neither much scaling nor much boating over the years.

I really hope developer communities look for simplicity of the overall systems, so it remains maintainable, and not make one interface simple and create bloat elsewhere.