As others have pointed out, the number of lines of code that the typical 2016 webapp depends on isn't all that different from other ecosystems. The dependency f

As others have pointed out, the number of lines of code that the typical 2016 webapp depends on isn't all that different from other ecosystems. The dependency footprint just looks a lot bigger because its broken up into lots and lots of little modules. I'd argue this actually makes things a little less fragile, because - at least theoretically - its easier to manage versions and do rollbacks of the different various pieces if something goes wrong. You can surgically switch the version of a dependency without necessarily changing a lot of other functionality. Of course, things aren't always that simple. And lots of little modules might effectively mean less integration testing and higher chances of bugs. So, maybe it's a toss-up.