I know what you’re thinking: “Not another React rant!” But hear me out. I’m not here to bash React for its performance, its ecosystem, or its popularity. I’m here to argue that React was a mistake because it fundamentally changed the way we think about web development, and not for the better.
React introduced a new paradigm for building web applications: components. Components are reusable pieces of UI that can have their own state, logic, and rendering. Components can be composed together to form complex interfaces, and React takes care of updating the DOM when the component state changes.
Sounds great, right? Well, not so fast. There are some serious drawbacks to this approach that are often overlooked or ignored by React enthusiasts.
First of all, components are not a natural fit for the web. The web is based on documents, not applications. Documents are structured by HTML elements, styled by CSS rules, and enhanced by JavaScript behaviors. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are designed t