I believe we are in a time of unprecedented change in the way front ends develop. React is in a way a "reaction" to all that change as well as all of the other things like Webpack and Babel. I think that we are seeing the beginnings of the new standards for web development that will carry us forward for the next at least 5 years. There are already libraries that seem "post-react" like Mithril that try to reestablish some of the simplicity while adopting new paradigms like the virtual dom. I think what's really exciting is the idea of using javascript to build native applications and React Native is leading the way there. So to answer your question - things are probably going to swing from complicated to simplistic as a natural cycle, but that this all is due to a sea change in the way we do development.