[user3939382]

> Why?

One more thing to know, to update, to break, to configure, to consider when debugging. The existence of source maps proves just one aspect of the pain this indirection and complexity introduces. I’m not necessarily arguing the trade offs don’t make it worth it, merely that there is a cost and there are good reasons we’d want to avoid it if, all else being equal, we can.

[tracker1]

Then you can just use ESM straight in the browser... The payload will be bigger, but it's all JS turtles the way down.

I think for me the only small down side (beyond request count/size) is you couldn't use JSX and a lighter interface (preact or similar). One option would be a service worker to transpile JSX on demand... which I guess wouldn't be too hard to do.