But they don't exist in isolation. They can't be argued about, reasoned about, replaced when a better way of looking at the problem is discovered, without convincing all of the jQuery elite that it's the right move.
It's not about jQuery being too many bytes, it's about the idea that A. for many things you can just use the browser APIs now, and B. for those handful of things that need libraries, make them targeted and replaceable.
Beyond all that, if you use a custom build of jQuery, you can't really trust that any library requiring it will actually work, returning to the original point: Libraries should try to not depend on jQuery, so you can enjoy your custom build in peace.
It's not about jQuery being too many bytes, it's about the idea that A. for many things you can just use the browser APIs now, and B. for those handful of things that need libraries, make them targeted and replaceable.
Beyond all that, if you use a custom build of jQuery, you can't really trust that any library requiring it will actually work, returning to the original point: Libraries should try to not depend on jQuery, so you can enjoy your custom build in peace.