> As an example, I still do not understand why simple HTTP crates require more than 50 to 70 dependencies to execute a simple GET call...

Looking at ureq [0], for example, its direct non-build/non-dev dependencies are (counting duplicates):

- base64

- flate2 (4 transitive dependencies)

- log

- percent-encoding

- rustls (26 transitive dependencies)

- rustls-pki-types (1 transitive dependency)

- ureq-proto (7 transitive dependencies)

- utf-8

- webpki-roots (2 transitive dependencies)

The vast majority of the raw dependency count comes from Rustls and related crates, and I'd imagine reimplementing a TLS stack would be somewhat out of scope for an HTTP crate. I'm not sure there's much room for substantial reductions in dependency count otherwise.

[0]: https://github.com/algesten/ureq