> I honestly can't fathom the reasons why we've encouraged JavaScript to eat the world
Who is "we"? The scenario isn't some God-like figure who made the decisions and handed them down to mortals to live with. The reality is more like evolution (one you actually described very well), where many different, independent players are each working in their own interest.
> Lowered the bar for acceptable quality
Define "quality". Especially given the evolution prism, I'd argue that quality is not a rubric like "best technical performance" but rather one like "permits as many people as possible to engage with as many parts of the stack as possible." With that definition of quality, the JS ecosystem is by far and indisputably the king of the mountain. Graveyards are littered with many "best technical quality" options (Betamax, Itanium...).
> time-to-product
Nitpick, the term is time-to-market. What matters is not just building and shipping your MVP (which can be done by one person, who can choose whichever technology stack) but continually shipping at high velocity over time as the company grows, the original engineers leave, etc.
Who is "we"? The scenario isn't some God-like figure who made the decisions and handed them down to mortals to live with. The reality is more like evolution (one you actually described very well), where many different, independent players are each working in their own interest.
> Lowered the bar for acceptable quality
Define "quality". Especially given the evolution prism, I'd argue that quality is not a rubric like "best technical performance" but rather one like "permits as many people as possible to engage with as many parts of the stack as possible." With that definition of quality, the JS ecosystem is by far and indisputably the king of the mountain. Graveyards are littered with many "best technical quality" options (Betamax, Itanium...).
> time-to-product
Nitpick, the term is time-to-market. What matters is not just building and shipping your MVP (which can be done by one person, who can choose whichever technology stack) but continually shipping at high velocity over time as the company grows, the original engineers leave, etc.