This is the entire reason. HTML, JS, and CSS weren't designed for their current purpose and updating them requires slow coordination across browser developers.
Once you start using compile-to-JS and get out of the JS ecosystem mess, the developer experience suddenly feels much less complicated.
What specific compile-to-JS ecosystem do you have in mind? I don't think I've encountered one that doesn't add complexity and layers of indirection. It may be worth it, but it doesn't come for free.
The easiest approach I've ever worked with is vanilla JS. But of course, building complicated stateful apps without a view layer like React is its own complication.
We've had good success with Blazor. The abstractions haven't been leaky. I haven't used it, but supposedly Kotlin-to-JS is excellent as well (and gives you access to a stunning amount of the JVM ecosystem at the same time). People on HN rave about Elm, too.
That just explains why do we know about that complexity.
Alternatives aren't less complex (and when you need some niche features W3 supports like printers and BT you're in deps hell -- at least you're operating without node.js), but data flows more linearly from server to client.
I was thinking under the cross-platform desktop+mobile league sorry!
Obviously when you develop with OS-specific and with a form factor even an SDK so neglected as any linux GUI will be a lot more simpler, and if you face complexity there, it's an issue and not a natural consequence.
Furthermore, the classic complex JS front-end excuse is that forbes500 firms, for whom React and Angular have been made, face problems with access and speed in rolling features that probably only MMO games face, which for most of their history have been developed under Windows only.
Or - on the backend there has been constant evolution of frameworks but browsers didn't provide lot of features that IMHO should have been in place such as ways to split and import into each other JS and CSS files or having variables in CSS and such.
Once you start using compile-to-JS and get out of the JS ecosystem mess, the developer experience suddenly feels much less complicated.