I agree. SSR that hydrates to an SPA is a pain in the butt and not necessary most of the time. This is why I favor something like Astro for websites... I can drop in a react embed when I need to. It's just a right-tool-for-the-right-job situation imo.
I absolutely love Astro, and it's my default for new projects. And I honestly feel like it's the only framework using React/Vue for their intended purposes; which is as an interactive layer on top of your SSR UI.
The problem is he's confidently wrong in believing Single Page Applications are about page transitions. Not at all. It's more about keeping state and an application-like experience. Like playing a song on spotify and changing to the search page and the song keeps playing... that type of thing.
Thank you for giving me a starting point to work with.
FFS, I have a degree in Civ Eng but if I start wittering on about bridges and roads I will define abbreviations. Its common courtesy.
With regards your analogy involving Spotify: I ripped all my CDs to FLAAC some years ago. The tapes and records took a little longer. No idea what a Spotify is. Well I do, I'm an IT consultant, but I don't actually care, I'm a 50 something IT consultant! I bought my music years ago and listen to it on my gear and from my gear alone.
This SPA thing sounds like it is getting out of hand and it also sounds like there are tribal divisions being drawn up. IT does love a tribe! We even have multiple internal tribes: devops, webdev and so on.
