jQuery itself is rarely a problem. It's a tool, just like any other library, and it's very effective at solving the problems it sets out to. But at the end of the day, it's still just a tool - and tools aren't solutions by themselves. Good application architecture usually points to the right tool for the job. I've developed on projects where jQuery, requireJS, AngularJS, Angular 2+, and React have each provided the best tool (and sometimes in conjunction with each other!) for what we needed.