Web Development in 2025: The Cycle of Complexity

Something is wrong with web development in 2025.

It’s bloated. Overengineered. Drowning in a sea of unnecessary complexity. We have too many frameworks, too many build steps, too many choices, too many paths that pull developers away from the web’s core primitive: the browser itself.

But it’s not just about client-side frameworks anymore. The entire philosophy of web development has become a cycle of over-engineered solutions fixing the problems they originally created.

The React Cycle: From Server to Client and Back Again

Remember when React convinced everyone that Single Page Apps (SPAs) were the future? That we should abandon server-side rendering in favor of fully client-side applications? That serverless functions were the way forward because they freed us from managing backend infrastructure?

Fast forward to today.

Now, React touts: Server Components are here!

Instead of embracing high-performance backend architectures that have worked for decades, we get JavaScript running on the server—Next.js acting as a middleman, trying to patch over the inefficiencies React introduced in the first place.

And let’s be real: This isn’t just about flexibility. React and Next.js have opinions. Their APIs force you into their ecosystem, into their way of thinking, making it unnecessarily difficult to build a high-performance backend outside their framework.

This cycle is exhausting:

  1. Convince developers that traditional approaches are outdated.
  2. Push an alternative that “fixes” the problem.
  3. Realize the new approach has major flaws.
  4. Reintroduce the thing they told us to abandon—just under a different name.

First, servers were bad, so we went all-in on the client. Now, the client is bad, so we need server components. What’s next? A push to “static-first” architectures that look eerily like the old-school web they originally tore down?

This Is Too Much Complexity for No Reason

Basic apps don’t need this. Even large apps don’t need this.

React and Next.js have created an artificially complex system that solves problems they introduced themselves. They preach flexibility, but the reality is a locked-in, fragile architecture that breaks when you least expect it.

  • Six months down the road, your app suddenly won’t build.
  • Maintenance costs increase with no business value.
  • Every upgrade cycle forces you to rewrite code just to keep things running.
  • The knowledge you gain in one framework is non-transferable.

This isn’t sustainable.

The Browser Was Always Enough

If you build an application today using web primitives—HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Web Components—it will still work six months from now. It will still work a year from now. It will still work five years from now.

There’s no forced upgrade treadmill. No breaking changes creeping in through dependencies. No sudden “your app no longer builds” moments.

Code as it was written runs.

At what point do we stop? At what point do we say: “The browser is enough”?

Because I think we’ve already crossed that line.

Let’s keep the conversation going!
Share your thoughts or ask questions on Twitter (now X.com) at @mikezupper.