I don't have time to learn React

This article by Keith is spot on.

I get it that it’s probably worth learning enough React to maybe land a gig, or to be useful in a context that has already chosen this as its web solution. I have.

But… try not reach for it as some sort of default solution — no matter what you’re building. All too often this ends up stunting a web developer’s skills in the long run.

If you’re at the beginning of your web development career, I recommend not putting all your eggs in the React basket. There’s so much else that’s worth investing your time in learning.

React proponents might claim that React will teach you modern UI, but from what I’ve seen it barely copes with modern UI. autofocus is broken, custom elements don’t work in all but the experimental version, using any “modern” features like <dialog> or popovers requires useEffect, and the synthetic event system teaches you so little about how DOM actually works. This isn’t modern UI, it’s UI from 2013 at its inception. I don’t have the time left in my career to pick up UI paradigms that haven’t evolved much beyond from when Barack Obama was in office.

When I mentor early career developers and they ask me what they should learn, I can’t say React, they don’t have time. I mean sure, pick up enough React to land you the inevitable job doing it, but it’s not going to level up your career.