I mean as someone who was there at the time, early React was easy to learn and adopt. It’s complexity came later after it had already won

Now Angular v1, man… if I ever see another digest loop error in my life, I will scream

So glad I never had to deal with Angular, especially v1. I tried learning it and it just seemed like it would actually make applications more incomprehensible than before. React originally addressed the actual problem that most frameworks mistook for not being that important. I still don't particularly like React, but it makes sense why it became popular.