Most of the slowness in modern web stacks isn’t the database or the network — it’s the JavaScript bundle the build pipeline accidentally invited in. Three observations from a year of pulling things out.
First: every dependency adds a long tail of transitive cost — security updates, breaking changes, the learning curve for new hires. Multiply that by 80 packages and the daily tax shows up in mysterious places.
Second: the easiest way to delete a dependency is the day you add it. Six months later the seams have grown over the wound and removal is surgery.
Third: the inverse function — adding a dependency — should require a small pitch. What problem does it solve that we couldn’t solve in 50 lines? If the answer is fuzzy, write the 50 lines.