I don't think web components were intended to be used directly by average users; even a basic abstraction layer makes the tedious bits easier. Take this to its logical end and you have something like [skatejs](https://github.com/skatejs/skatejs), an abstraction layer over web components that you'd probably find very familiar and easy to use.

In that sense, web components aren't meant to compete with react and other frameworks, but to serve as an alternate, native foundational layer for frameworks.