I don’t think added complexity is a ‘feature’ us front end devs strive for. Instead, there are a lot of useful UX abstractions that are increasingly expected by users and are becoming extraordinarily tricky to roll on your own. Yeah there’s tons of extra crap, but the 8000+ projects in most node_modules has become more or less the standard library for that projects developer. It’s nuts, but JavaScript is the Wild West so it’s what we deal with.

i think it is more likely that "real" developers who started working as web devs missed the hierarchical ecosystem and built up one out of straws. Of course, that's a cargo cult.