What were the arguments in favour of SPAs in the first place?

I'm finding it interesting that most of the top HN submissions (by popularity) matching "single page app" are critical, not positive. First 15 follow, all but 5 are negative:

- You probably don't need a single-page app (https://journal.plausible.io/you-probably-dont-need-a-single...) 816 points | 6 years ago | 499 comments

- A single-page app is almost always worse than a multi-page app (https://www.gregnavis.com/articles/the-architecture-no-one-n...) 289 points | 6 years ago | 145 comments

- The myth that you can’t build interactive web apps except as single page app (https://htmx.org/essays/you-cant/) 262 points | 4 months ago | 143 comments

- Building a single-page app with Htmx (https://jakelazaroff.com/words/building-a-single-page-app-wi...) 252 points | 5 months ago | 143 comments

- AWS Lambda as a back end for a single-page app (http://lg.io/2015/05/16/the-future-is-now-and-its-using-aws-...) 229 points | 10 years ago | 73 comments

- Create your own dysfunctional single-page app (https://tinnedfruit.com/articles/create-your-own-dysfunction...) 208 points | 6 years ago | 138 comments

- The Single-Page-App Morality Play (https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2021/single-page-app-moralit...) 207 points | 3 years ago | 131 comments

- Todos: a Backbone.js example Single-Page-App (with LocalStorage)(http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/examples/todos/inde...) 169 points | 14 years ago | 28 comments

- Your single-page app is now a polyfill (https://itnext.io/your-single-page-app-is-now-a-polyfill-788...) 164 points | 4 years ago | 158 comments

- Why I hate your Single Page App (https://medium.freecodecamp.org/why-i-hate-your-single-page-...) 107 points | 8 years ago | 120 comments

- Building a single page app with Backbone.js, underscore.js and jQuery (http://andyet.net/blog/2010/oct/29/building-a-single-page-ap...) 103 points | 14 years ago | 19 comments

- Why I hate your Single Page App (2016)(https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/why-i-hate-your-single-pag...) 37 points | 11 months ago | 34 comments

- Sonny – Fast single page app engine (https://github.com/felixmaier/sonnyJS) 36 points | 10 years ago | 25 comments

- You probably don't need a single page app (https://plausible.io/blog/you-probably-dont-need-a-single-pa...) 31 points | 6 years ago | 24 comments

- Ask HN: What are the common pitfalls/problems of Single Page App's? 13 points | 9 years ago | 18 comments