Part of the skillset is evaluating dependencies on how well they fit with your goals both technical and strategic and what level of risk/benefit they pose, and how those dependencies are places in their respective ecosystem.

Usually any ecosystem has a core set of dependencies that are heavily relied on by most or a lot of projects as the go-to solution for a given problem. Then there are often sets of dependencies where there are several popular well maintained choices to pick from depending on your needs.

Where it gets a little trickier is things that are a bit more niche. That being said, most software development just wouldn't be possible without standing on the shoulders of giants so to speak cos it's just so time consuming.

They're far more of a benefit than a detriment but you have to learn to assess them and make choices based on your individual considerations.