Dependencies are correlated with complexity in my mind. This is based on my experience, which may be different from yours. My experience with node_modules is actually where I started to become wary of dependencies and try to minimize them in my code. You definitely to be careful of NIH. I find sometimes a better approach is just to cut features.

I think I understand the utilty of the Ory stack. Looks like some excellent kit doing excellent work for a lot of people. But it didn't solve my problems.