If you write your stuff in a web framework, the rewrites aren't pointless. Well, they are, of course, but you can't really avoid them, because the old stuff stops getting updates within a year, so you either rewrite or can't update the framework, security updates included.

Made me just give up on web development.

I think React has an at least somewhat reasonable track record in terms of backwards compatibility? Still not perfect but much better than all the other frameworks.