[Spivak]

It's a combination of popularity, forced usage, organic growth, and maturity.

If every single developer ever had to write Java we would see the same complaints.

* A ridiculous amount of dependencies and tooling.

* As many competing ways to architect programs as there are Java developers.

* Lots of warts and quirks due to design missteps in hindsight. Ignored by the people who love it but grating to the people who don't.

* As many "the good parts" as there are Java developers.

* Everyone complaining about Spring like they do React.

For most languages if you don't like it you don't use it. But with JS (just like Java in the 90's and 00's) even if you don't vibe with JS it's completely unavoidable.