As a developer I agree that developers should prefer to get features out quickly and optimize the experience later. However, as a user, I think this section is

As a developer I agree that developers should prefer to get features out quickly and optimize the experience later. However, as a user, I think this section is really important: I’d like to try and make it work offline. To do that, and do it well, you need a way to show the data in different ways even when you can’t call a server. I often have "What the hell is this thing doing" moments as a web app hangs trying to complete a round trip over my mobile connection when I know it has already fetched the information on that page or I know it could be doing something useful despite not being able to connect. The author is not proclaiming that SPAs are a bad idea. He's just pointing out how much extra work they are, and that some types of apps are worse as SPAs, or simply much harder with nothing to show for it. He even points out that not all the badness of SPAs is intrinsic to being an SPA: Why does a website that orders food from restaurants need a Megabyte of javascript? I tried to figure that out by inspecting the API calls. It turned out they were tracking every mouse event. In short: 1) horses for courses, and 2) SPA apps are a lot more work and you have to decide when the benefits are meaningful. Less contentious but maybe less fun than trying to argue which is the one to rule them all.