I've only had to dive into the native code a handful of times, but I do basically make an ugly CRUD app. Most apps are ugly CRUD apps though. I haven't used the Shopify app, but it probably falls into that category too.

> What do you do when there are native build errors?

I periodically do suffer through xcode upgrades, bad RN module linking, gradle issues, etc, but it's a couple of days of work every few months to say current. The JS devs don't really have to think about this stuff for the daily work. I think it's totally possible to get away with one person that knows how to do the hard technical stuff when it crops up.

That said, I don't build the most technically sophisticated product. The vast majority of changes we make are for design/marketing or for features that build on what we already have. I think that's true of most apps.

It's not for everything, and I'm glad Firefox (for example) does do native Android development. I couldn't imagine that working with React Native. But look at the apps on any random phone and the ones that couldn't be made in RN is pretty small.