It seems you're frustrated with frameworks and the web platform in addition to ES6.
I think the web platform has gotten a lot more accessible to developers and actually simpler in many ways very recently.
* Custom Elements offer a built-in component model that works with vanilla JavaScript and is in harmony with the DOM, rather than trying to replace it. No tooling is needed, and you can try it out right in your browser's dev console.
* ES6 classes standardize and simplify syntax for classical inheritance where before ES5 inheritance was either ad-hoc, or you had to buy in to a frameworks inheritance helpers (variations of createClass() or extend()).
* CSS's flexbox and now grids let you express layout much closer to your intent, instead of floats, auto-margins, large grid systems, etc.
* Shadow DOM solves CSS scoping and overly complex selectors. You can write very simple and straightforward styles when they're scoped to a shadow root.
* CSS variables bring a platform-native way to do variables, rather than having to do SASS/LESS/SCSS.
* JavaScript modules will finally solve and standardize the import and loading problem, which has spawned countless tools and entire tools ecosystems.
And, if you judiciously choose some non-standard tools, TypeScript brings a great experience for reading, navigating and type checking code, with a language that's as close to plain JS as we've seen recently. It's been much easier for my team to jump between projects with TypeScript's clearer type annotations.
Personally, I think the future of the web is _very_ bright, it's just not evenly distributed yet.
I think the web platform has gotten a lot more accessible to developers and actually simpler in many ways very recently.
* Custom Elements offer a built-in component model that works with vanilla JavaScript and is in harmony with the DOM, rather than trying to replace it. No tooling is needed, and you can try it out right in your browser's dev console.
* ES6 classes standardize and simplify syntax for classical inheritance where before ES5 inheritance was either ad-hoc, or you had to buy in to a frameworks inheritance helpers (variations of createClass() or extend()).
* CSS's flexbox and now grids let you express layout much closer to your intent, instead of floats, auto-margins, large grid systems, etc.
* Shadow DOM solves CSS scoping and overly complex selectors. You can write very simple and straightforward styles when they're scoped to a shadow root.
* CSS variables bring a platform-native way to do variables, rather than having to do SASS/LESS/SCSS.
* JavaScript modules will finally solve and standardize the import and loading problem, which has spawned countless tools and entire tools ecosystems.
And, if you judiciously choose some non-standard tools, TypeScript brings a great experience for reading, navigating and type checking code, with a language that's as close to plain JS as we've seen recently. It's been much easier for my team to jump between projects with TypeScript's clearer type annotations.
Personally, I think the future of the web is _very_ bright, it's just not evenly distributed yet.