It appears the layoffs affected the React team, and the once-standard way for starting a new framework-less project (CRA) isn't supported anymore.
The ecosystem is confusing, but I'd argue it's still quite straightforward to start a new project: either use one of Vite's basic React templates or Next if you want an opinionated framework.
I don't think it's fair to blame CRA's state of disrepair on the layoffs. CRA has been barely maintained for years now and what releases it did receive were mostly to update its dependencies. CRA was created out of a need for a "blessed" starter but it feels like the hope was that it would spark competition so it could be replaced with something else.
The existence of craco to deal with CRA being opinionated to a fault is both awesome (in that I <3 the craco devs for making it, especially given when I discovered it I was right on the verge of reinventing it in a fit of rage and they'd already done it better than I would have) and something of a demonstration that one can take opinionation too far such that it becomes evolutionarily maladaptive.
The ecosystem is confusing, but I'd argue it's still quite straightforward to start a new project: either use one of Vite's basic React templates or Next if you want an opinionated framework.