> It’s easier to win an argument by citing SSR compatibility issues than it is to ask, “Why are we using React for a blog?”
I've asked myself this a LOT - the past few years especially.
I think the biggest reason, which the author doesn't touch on, is that *React won*. React won vs. alternatives so much and so thoroughly that it started to be used for everything - even in places that it clearly should not be, like static content pages. The reality is that in most frameworks, it's easier to make the whole page with React for the once piece of the page you needed to be interactive than to make the whole page static and do some vanilla JavaScript manually. The React ecosystem is HUGE, and most developers out there are just gluing things together.
Some "interactive islands" frameworks like Astro and Hyperspan (my own project) are starting to finally change this approach and make the "mostly static with JS sprinkles" approach easier, but they are a late reaction to the core problem described in this post. It will take time for these approaches to gain traction.
I've asked myself this a LOT - the past few years especially.
I think the biggest reason, which the author doesn't touch on, is that *React won*. React won vs. alternatives so much and so thoroughly that it started to be used for everything - even in places that it clearly should not be, like static content pages. The reality is that in most frameworks, it's easier to make the whole page with React for the once piece of the page you needed to be interactive than to make the whole page static and do some vanilla JavaScript manually. The React ecosystem is HUGE, and most developers out there are just gluing things together.
Some "interactive islands" frameworks like Astro and Hyperspan (my own project) are starting to finally change this approach and make the "mostly static with JS sprinkles" approach easier, but they are a late reaction to the core problem described in this post. It will take time for these approaches to gain traction.