Every dependency you add is a bet that someone else won't abandon their project. If the code you write today relies on an abstraction born yesterday, you are buying technical debt with a short expiration date. Choosing tools based on "hype" isn't a criterion, it's gambling.
Experience looks for probability of survival.
What does the Lindy Effect tell us about technical debt?
In software, time acts as the ultimate quality filter. Unlike living beings, ideas and technologies gain "life expectancy" for every year they survive in production.
The Lindy Effect states that the life expectancy of non-perishable technologies is proportional to their current age.
- HTML/CSS: 30+ years old. Highly likely to survive another 30.
- JS Frameworks: 2-5 years old. High risk of breaking changes and deprecation.
Writing code coupled to the native browser API means the code from 10 years ago still works today without needing to run npm audit fix or fighting broken dependencies.
Takeaway: Web standards aren't boring: they are infrastructure, not an expense. They don't eliminate maintenance, but they eliminate external volatility.
Why is choosing a framework a financial gamble?
Choosing a framework is not a technical decision. It's signing a future contract that includes three mandatory costs:
- Forced migrations
- Technological lock-in
- Constant team retraining
Frameworks are not the problem; the problem is using them where the standard is already enough.
If you can't justify why that extra layer of abstraction will outlast the product's own lifecycle, you are gambling with your client's money.
Long-term ROI: The 0kb Approach
| JS Abstraction | Native Web Standards |
|---|
| Ephemeral | High Stability |
| Technical Annuity | Compound Interest |
Constant npm update | Just works |
Investing in web standards is buying compound interest. Investing in ephemeral frameworks is paying a technical annuity just to keep the ship afloat.
Conclusion
The best code is the one that keeps working when no one is maintaining it. If you need constant updates just to keep your stack alive, you didn't build an investment: you bought a subscription.
What depends less, lasts longer.
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This post was originally published on campa.dev.