What kills me is that many websites would be better in every way if they were just html and css. I have come to think of it as premature optimization for some fancy capability down the road. It's like telling people they have to hire engineers to take core samples and do seismic modeling before building a chicken coop.
As evidenced by the large numbers of production html and css apps that are outcompeting their competitors who use modern web technologies with greater product quality, and the swathes of customers who state their preference for these experiences.
But seriously I have no idea of a single remotely well-known application that satisfies the above. If the modern web is so bad where are the products that prove that it can be done better more simply? There’s billions to be made if that’s true in all industries, is nobody skilled capable of capitalizing on this gold mine of opportunity wherein the entire industry is self sabotaging?
I’m left to conclude that these HN commenters with their hot takes about how the modern web sucks just generally either don’t understand what makes products successful or never have truly experienced the issues these frameworks solve for.
While that is true the current state of reddit UX allows them to succeed by virtue of critical mass gained before they went nuts. If you created a new site with that UX you would get nowhere.
The simple truth is people are drawn to websites for what they get out of them.
I recall being turned off by Reddit's UI when I stopped using Digg. The content was so incredible that I learned how to love it. And now they've killed Apollo so my only interaction with it is via Google search results for my problem du jour.
It usually takes government to tie people up in these sorts of knots. These people have enthusiastically done it to themselves. Resume driven development is a hell of a drug.
