Maybe you will find that rolling a little of your own code instead of depending on libraries as much is less hard than you imagined and has some nice benefits?

Maybe you will find that rolling a little of your own code instead of depending on libraries as much is less hard than you imagined and has some nice benefits? EF isn't a necessity, many shops prefer not to use it at all. Core is the future so if one wants to keep using .NET at all they should find a way or switch to something else.