It's the general state of Javascript and frontend code which is finally starting to understand what multithreading and concurrency is.
It's surprising that JS has so much history with callbacks and events but async methods are unsupported or require workarounds by so many core frameworks and libraries which default to synchronous APIs for everything.
So what if React is massively bloated, stupid syntax, can't use regular HTML, can't use regular CSS, can't use async/await, have to do everything a special way...literally, SO WHAT. It IS REACT! OMG behold it's glory. It came from FB, maybe if we use it we can scale like FB!
Omg the idiocy. But keep on slavishly following the next front-end dev trend. I can't tell whether front-end dev culture is a massive circle-jerk or cargo cult. And don't mention the irrational hate attempted to be heaped onto anyone who dares question the programmatic thinking of the official line of the React Appreciation Society.
Why not just ask people why they use X? Plenty of veteran developers on HN could tell you why they like React despite a sea of alternatives, but it's easier to just cast aspersions instead of understanding.
It's a shame to see this on HN which is supposedly a community of craftspeople who build things. If you can only come up with insults for why another group of people do something, it's time for you to get up off your ass and ask someone in that group. And this extends beyond just engineering, it's how you understand other people in general.
I'm pretty sure I'm being baited here but all of these are categorically false.
React is the first framework that allows me quickly build rich web-apps that load fast, perform fast, and have a structure and order to them that keeps them enjoyable to work on as they get bigger.
I have no loyalty to Facebook and I've tried pretty much every major framework or library that's gained traction in the past 15 years.