All that “bloat” enables us to do (much) more with less developer hours.
The balance is the same as ever, developer time vs. compute power. As compute power gets ever cheaper, and developer time still costs the same, we put bigger burdens on the machine to save developer time.
I don't think that developer time is the only metric here.
Yes, every project can get to market or to the next release with a startup company's speed, but you trade-off and generally get "startup quality" that way. That is the actual point.
This industry is so fast-moving that the costs associated with that level of quality is often paid later by other people. There are plenty of examples of this.
The balance is the same as ever, developer time vs. compute power. As compute power gets ever cheaper, and developer time still costs the same, we put bigger burdens on the machine to save developer time.
In other words, simple economics.