The official docs originally described React as "the V in MVC" [1], so the assumption about needing another layer to handle state and business logic didn't come

The official docs originally described React as "the V in MVC" [1], so the assumption about needing another layer to handle state and business logic didn't come from nowhere. The claim isn't that there's no cargo cult around the React ecosystem — but not everyone writing React code is approaching it with experience, which means they try to pick up best practices from other people. That's not "cargo culting"; it's a reasonable thing to do when you have to solve a problem you don't know how to solve! Ultimately, people aren't being "tricked" into using these tools. They proliferate because they solve real problems people have, and a lot of people would rather work with a popular and well-documented solution (with known advantages and drawbacks) than trying to forge their own path and seeing how it goes. [1] https://github.com/facebook/react/pull/7012 https://github.com/facebook/react/pull/7012