Only parts of modern web dev are unnecessarily complex. What you can do with frameworks like SvelteKit or Nuxt, SolidStart, Remix, Next, ... is amazing. For simpler use-cases you sure can and should use vanilla HTML, CSS and some JS maybe some HTMX to level the interactivity ceiling, but for highly interactive apps with flexible rendering you need one of the modern frameworks. I assume you lack experience in front end, so believe me, getting started with a simple React SPA pre CreateReactApp (6-8 years ago?) was a horror trip. Now, starting, working on and deploying an app with the modern frameworks, e.g. SvelteKit doesn't get any easier in any tech. As a long term full stack dev my assessment is that web dev is in an exciting phase. A lot of innovation (and improvements) has been made in the recent years. Tooling has greatly improved mainly thanks to Vite, reactivity has become simpler, DX is a prio 1 concern thanks to Svelte. While not being fully convinced of general usefulness of universal rendering, I admire the innovation there.