React is a bad idea imo. I see small teams do way better with plain old HTML augmented with minimal Javascript. React itself is huge to download and slower to execute. I can't believe we're still stuck in React world.

React's core concept was excellent. It solved many of the issues with previous view libraries. What React turned into over the years is problematic, accumulating bad design decisions until it became the monster that it is.

The way React Native works is an example of how good the original React concept still is. It has nothing to do with HTML, it's made of cross-platform view components. It has similar ergonomics as the web version, like one-way data flow, immediate-mode rendering, view as function of state.

It's true that React has passed its peak usefulness (relative to the problems it brings), in a long tail of decline for the next decade. Newer better view libraries are being created and adopted by the community. Some of them will eventually overtake React as the next standard tool. But they all learned from React's lessons, because it really did push forward the evolution of web development.

While you might be right.

It seems like you didn't notice this was about React Native, the cross platform mobile app framework.

So "just write plain html" isn't a valid alternative unless you want to write a Progressive Web App instead. Which means you:

- Forego the App Store and need to ask users to bookmark your website

- Loose ease of access to device features (cameras, sensors, push notifications)

You likely mean "small projects". No way you see teams do better with plain old HTML + minimal JS on anything of substantial complexity. It was hell to organize code for a web app without a framework using nothing or jQuery.

When I use React / Next.js on Web projects, is not because I personaly like them, but because I have been part of projects using SaaS products whose SDKs are only available alongside those stacks.

Its easy to say now, if react creators knew everything that we know they would've made different choices, but at its time it was a breakthrough compared to other approaches.