Second-Guessing the Modern Web
I empathize with the author but client-side technologies like React have a pretty clear advantage that explains why they&#x27;re popular: for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they&#x27;re easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive.<p>It&#x27;s true that they are largely more complex than O.G. web technologies, and it worries me that they create a sort of gatekeeping effect on the industry, but I think it&#x27;s disingenuous to outright claim React &amp; co. are bad from a development perspective. I sometimes wonder if the people claiming to hate client-side technologies or disable JS in their browsers have actually ever had to build a complex website to put food on their table. My bet is the answer is often no, or they are a contrarian in general.<p>I&#x27;ve done lots of native development on Desktop and Mobile and I can sort of see how you get there if that&#x27;s your point of reference, but if you work on web apps daily it&#x27;s clear why the popular technologies are popular, and it&#x27;s not hype.