The React Pendulum

The sources present a critical dialogue regarding the value and necessity of the React framework in modern web development, contrasting its complexity with foundational web platform technologies. Initially, the discussion identifies numerous large, public-facing applications like Netflix and Instagram that use React, justifying its use for scaling large development teams and managing rich, dynamic UIs. However, the subsequent conversation pivots, arguing that for most typical web projects (content sites, small dashboards, CRUD tools), React introduces unnecessary complexity that can be better managed by simpler, web-native technologies such as HTMX, Svelte, and Web Components. The exchange further critiques the rapid decay of knowledge within the React ecosystem and the fragility of the NPM dependency chain, ultimately suggesting that development focusing on core web principles (like jQuery and Bootstrap) often leads to more stable, maintainable, and user-friendly applications, reinforcing the core UX concept of Object Permanence.