So, this guy wants to pay me to do his final project for a web design class. Easy money, but highly unethical. My hours at work were cut to basically zero, so I could really use the cash. What would you do?

(Alternatively, if anyone is aware of any open projects that AREN'T unethical, I'm all ears)

Why the hell does every single frontend job on Earth require expert knowledge of React, a fad JS library that will be forgotten in 5 years?

For extra credit: when was the sage advice of "keep content, appearance, and behavior separate" overruled in favor of "use JavaScript for literally everything"? Have I been in a coma for the past 3 years?

Look, I understand the appeal of separating code into repeatable components. I just don't understand why essentially the same thing can't be accomplished with vanilla JS, which is ten times easier to understand and doesn't require an entire website to be written in some make-believe offshoot of Ecmascript that will look like hieroglyphics a decade from now.

There are also seemingly no positions that offer people a platform to start applying React to real world scenarios. I've seen the "understand React in 5 minutes" articles. Wow, super cool, you used 30 lines of JavaScript to render a "Hello world" div. The possibilities are truly endless.

But seriously, how does this shit work? Where do I go to learn the mystical art of offloading every single one of a website's responsibilities to JavaScript? How do I use React to build an actual functioning website, and at what point will it save me time or increase my productivity instead of just pissing me off?