Major version numbers are now actually reflecting major changes. If you're reading an article for React 16 and have strange issues because you're on React 12, i

Major version numbers are now actually reflecting major changes. If you're reading an article for React 16 and have strange issues because you're on React 12, it's going to be a lot more obvious than if we're just bumping up minor versions. You can also be more sure that a if you're on 16.0.4, and the article is for 16.0.1 - that you're less likely to run into issues. It's the same reason chrome is on 62 and Firefox is launching 57 at the end of the month. Semantic versioning gets bigger numbers faster, but it's better for developers.