Even fetch?

Definitely not Fetch. I don't believe anyone can argue that Fetch is more complicated.

I think this really seems to stem from a "I'm only used to jQuery, anything else is a big mental effort to learn and I'd rather stick with what I know".

I get it. Vanilla JS, if you're not used to it, is scary. But if you're advocating for jQuery "for simple interactions", and assuming it's simpler than vanilla JS, at some point you should ask yourself if you're just letting your skills stagnate, and staying stuck in the past. You owe it to yourself to update your skillset. If you decide you still need jQuery (e.g. maybe you need a plugin/library that requires jQuery), then fine. But at least you'll be making an informed decision, not a FUD-driven one.

I mean `await $.ajax("https://jquery.com/")` is shorter than `await(await fetch("https://jquery.com/")).text()`

As someone kinda obsessed with handcrafting all of its software without any dependency and is highly used to dom operations, I can't but thing you're making it much more of a deal than it is.

Handcrafting JavaScript applications without jQuery is possible, the real question though is: is it convenient if you like and find productive using jQuery? Here's a fact: you can always remove jQuery later when the product is mature and standards understood and there is time budget for it.