This is perhaps the oddest point the article makes.

They argue that JavaScript is still available for its “originally intended” purpose of light scripting, but that using less JS on the front end somehow frees you to use whatever you want on the back end.

But there is nothing inherent to SPAs that would force anyone to use JS on the back end.

And if “diversity is our strength” then I see no reason that wouldn’t be equally true when building JS-heavy SPAs.