100% this. So much environment complexity these days before you get to Hello World. Command line, install this and that, mess with configuration files and on and on.

Like you, the last quick prototype I did was all html and js uploaded to a shared hosting (https://arcadejack.com). I would like to get back to building simple apps, but the barriers are higher than 20 yrs ago. For my current side project I'm using PHP and hired a developer online to help me with initial boilerplates.