No. I'm speaking from experience having used React from its very first release. You're not only factually wrong about me being wrong, your knowledge is obviously quite limited.

React has always initially rendering components on the server, then hydrated on the client. You don't have to take my word for it, download the initial release and try it out yourself: https://github.com/facebook/react/releases/tag/v0.4.0

Go ahead, run that and write a simple app. Even better, want to do full SSR with no client lifecycle? Write an app that uses "React.renderComponentToString" and then describe what's happening for me.

Even .NET had solutions around using React just for SSR: https://reactjs.net/features/server-side-rendering.html

Claiming that react itself could not just render out a component server-side and spit out the HTML to the client requires several critical misconceptions about how software in general works lol.