Lately, it feels like even the smallest project comes with an unwritten rule that you need 15 dependencies, Docker containers, Tailwind plugins, and a complex deployment pipeline before you even render a <div>.
My recent experience was when I wanted to build a simple 3D browser runner game over the weekend. I started with the "recommended" modern web setup and immediately got buried in conflicting bundler configs, SSR hydration errors on canvas components, and package bloat. So I ended up tearing half of it out, switching to a lightweight editor (Zed), drafting the math directly in AI Studio, and keeping the game loop isolated in a barebones Vite canvas before wrapping it in Next.js just for hosting. The moment I stripped away the modern boilerplate, the project actually moved fast.
What s a part of modern web dev or startup tech stacks that you think has become completely over-engineered for 90% of use cases?
