React went from class components to function components and from lifetime callbacks to hooks. These concepts are completely orthogonal.

There exist design choices that would end up with a different combo. Class components with hooks or function components using lifetime callbacks.

Yes, hooks — basically sub components with possible effects and yielding values, or DOM output — are a terrific idea and much more functional and principled than explicit lifetime callbacks.

All the dependency arrays and non-conditional checks etc are because of the function components approach and don’t have much to do with hooks.

I feel nearly every discussion on hooks mixes this up and makes the whole conversation just weird and confusing.