Genuine question: Judging from the comments, seems like people like this approach. So why is the general trend more towards approaches that use javascript (sometimes unnecessarily) and frameworks like React?
But what users like and what developers like (and can quickly develop) are often very different things.
Here on HN we often see the schism between speaking "as a developer" and "as a user".
As a user I hate a lot of the shit we gleefully enthuse about here. As a coder it's super cool.
When you build programs that run on _your_ computers, you have to pay for that. Or at least have to deal with the finance folks asking why your cloud spend increased 5%.
But if you run your software on other people's devices, like frontend devs do, there's barely any cost to that. Any negative signals need to trickle in through user reports, support tickets, and maybe Twitter posts. There's a ton of selection going on there so you're likely not getting the full picture.
Ie. It's all about incentives
The web is replacing traditional thick clients, which also assumed a fairly stable network connection and platform specification.
Government systems need to work with the lowest denominator - even if it's not that common. Tech startups only need 1 client to exist at the start (and can mostly trust that their requirements will become commonplace as they scale).
In fact, I think that people dislike this approach because they are frontend developers, as otherwise there would be very little frontend to develop.
A business probably thinks that it doesn't need 100% accessibility. A nicer site may be thought to get more users/customers, even if the site doesn't work for many (or maybe devs just want to fit in with the other cool devs making cool dev sites)
2. Tools. React+JavaScript is the industry monoculture. If they're all you know (and for a significant number of frontend devs this is unfortunately true) then you're invariably going to build something complex because its in the nature of your chosen tools.
3. Career anxiety. Building something simple using simple tools isn't sufficiently hardcore and braggable to get that juicy comp increase at the next performance review, never mind a promotion or hopping to that next job.
a. I once worked on a project where the webapp frontend went through a time-consuming, mid-project framework swapout because the "senior full-stack developer/architect" decided it needed server-side rendering for SEO purposes. Never mind that it was a niche industrial app that required a login to use and simply wasn't visible to search engines.
b. I remember being advised to stay quiet when I asked why a different web developer, upon being asked to build a simple static website, had nevertheless built it in React.
Secondly it's less "boring" for developers and arguably less work.
Thirdly you have a large amount of only-frontend (often only-React) devs know who won't think of alternatives.
Humphrey: But what happens to us?
Bernard: Well, much less work.
Humphrey: Yes! Much. Less. Work. So little that fullstack engineers might almost be able to do it on their own!
There were will always be a group of devs that don’t like it because it isn’t the same web as in their heyday, and they all will eagerly pile on anything remotely JS-critical is posted on HN.
There is a selection bias to the comments that does not accurately reflect the industry opinion.
"Companies" don't really know anything. The decisions get made by people, with all the flaws that people have. I have seen many developers make decisions that are detrimental to the company.
I do agree that there is a section of HN that will pile on these kind of topics, and I have flagged dozens of low-effort swiped against JS over the years that add nothing.
But two things can be true at the same time:
1. there is an unpleasant section of HN that will rant about all things JS, and
2. SPAs (or our current approach to them) bring a lot of downsides and are often not worth it.
Are entirely compatible.
That said, I think if a certain technology becomes an industry standard, especially one that demonstrates some staying power, as React has, it should not be dismissed out-of-hand, and most of this comments section is doing.
There's a lot of self-sorting going on here; I stopped doing the frontend thing because I didn't like the way things were going and even tepid critique of this was (and still is) often met with completely out of proportion aggression, vitriol, and insults. I got more hate and vitriol over my "Why I'm using jQuery in 2018" post than the rest of my website combined. It feels like engaging on the Israel/Palestine debate or something.
Of course every community self-sorts to a degree. That's okay. I would never presume to critique React on a React thread. But "frontend" is very broad and also includes non-React.
Your comments here are fine, but at the same time it also strongly suggests that SPAs are the only way to build good frontends and that everyone who disagrees is just some old coot stuck in their ways. Both of which are rather tiring tropes, and especially that second one is pretty dismissive, if not downright insulting.
So I kind of gave up on this years ago. It's easy to reach consensus if you chase away everyone who disagrees.
Please don't make this an Us vs. Them thing.
[0]: http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/marissa-mayer-at-web-20....
The top comment on this page said the frontend community seems like a jobs program. It's interesting that you are only criticizing the view you disagree with as being too divisive.