If you didn't gather off the bat from the title, the problem with developing front end projects isn't that it's harder or more complicated, it's that you made it harder and more complicated. I keep reading lately about how complex web development has become. How, now you can't build a site before getting all the tooling in place and selecting the "right" framework or spending untold hours learning some new JavaScript technology.
I keep reading how there was once a time that you could just write some PHP and HTML and hit refresh and you'd see the fruits of your efforts.
How you could drop in jQuery and things were easier, and now the complicated web is here, and it's here to stay.
Dear reader - let me ask you this, and I hope you ask your colleagues the same: what's stopping you from using exactly method today?.
I say: nothing.
I think the thing that's stopping most developers in their managers and teammates. But for people working on their own, he's right.