[ramin_hal9001]

Others have mentioned the trend of making everything a SPA, which I agree is a huge part of the problem -- it is a cultural issue, not a technological one. Most apps only need to be HTML with minimal client-side scripting. People who teach front-end need to start out by teaching people how to use static site generators, rather than immediately telling everyone they need to start learning React or Vue.

But I'll also say that the web as an app platform was fundamentally broken from the very start, and this is because it was built on a fundamentally bad programming model. *Why is it* that everyone feels the need to use use virtual-DOM frameworks and CSS preprocessors for all the apps they design? Why is it that whenever I build an app for the web, NPM needs to download and compile around 10,000 modules (no exaggeration) in order to build the app?

JavaScript was originally going to be a Lisp-like language, but OOP was in fashion at the time and so it was made to be more like Java. Had it been a Lisp from the start, at least CSS preprocessors would never have become a thing because with Lisp you have macros. I am not saying the web needs to be based on Lisp, although it would definitely help if things started moving toward web assembly so people can start using better programming languages and frameworks than just the ones that compile to JavaScript to program front-end apps.