That's why I wrote "the utility of jQuery in 2022 aside" at the beginning. Of course, if you don't need it anymore, you don't have to think twice about removing

That's why I wrote "the utility of jQuery in 2022 aside" at the beginning. Of course, if you don't need it anymore, you don't have to think twice about removing it, but their statement is overinflating the cost of having jQuery (or any other dependency) on your site.