If I had to pin it down to only one thing, it would be culture. There is a perfect storm of several factors that has caused the rapid descent over the last 10 or so years. Here are a few recurring themes I've seen as a consultant, trainer, and engineering leader during that time: 1. Maturity - We have an overwhelmingly junior-heavy JS community, and no clear mentorship path for these folks. This leads to over-dependence on frameworks and unhealthy hero worship of social media tech influencers. It also means that innovation is only happening within a small group and most people don't know how to solve problems and create solutions for themselves. 2. Knowledge - There is a broad lack in understanding of fundamental Web Standards, even among many Sr+ engineers. There is also a broad ignorance of the history of web tech and software engineering more broadly. This leads to poor technical decision making, both at the architecture level and the implementation level. This has also led to the adoption of overly complicated solutions to relatively simple problems. 3. Hubris. - While there has been so much talk of imposter syndrome in the industry, ironically, at least on social media, folks seem to be overly confident in their own skills, overly confident in their chosen frameworks, and overly confident in their social media celebrities. 4. Tribalism - Many individuals in our industry associate themselves with a sort of "tribe" surrounding a particular library/framework or social media influencer. This can make it nearly impossible to teach individuals new things, difficult for them to cope with changes happening in the web platform that "threaten" what they have built their career or personal brand around, and nearly impossible for them to handle criticism. Objective evaluation of alternative technologies is right out. If we could address the culture issues, then the technical challenges would solve themselves.

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