The author is ranting about the state of modern front-end development, specifically with regards to the over-reliance on bloated libraries and frameworks. They're fed up with having to include unnecessary dependencies just for 3 lines of code, and how this leads to unmaintained libraries, complexity, and a never-ending cycle of upgrades and compatibility issues. They express frustration that developers are not taught efficient programming skills anymore, and that the focus is on using popular "hip" frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular, rather than learning vanilla JavaScript and building UI components from scratch. The author mentions that they've tried to lead teams in their companies to adopt more lightweight approaches, but were met with resistance. They describe how new versions of previously well-established libraries would break existing code, requiring major rewrites or migrations. They also lament the fact that developers are not optimizing for size and speed anymore, citing the example of 11MB (about 13 floppy disks' worth) for a web UI as "normal". In contrast, they mention that their own chat UI uses only 360kB, including other functionality. The author concludes by deciding to take matters into their own hands and investigate the Matrix Protocol SDK to build a lightweight, minimal chat UI from scratch. They express skepticism about the ability of modern front-end developers to create efficient code without relying on bloated libraries. Overall, the author's rant is a passionate plea for a return to more fundamental programming skills and a focus on simplicity, efficiency, and maintainability in software development.