I couldn't disagree more. For anyone on a slower connection (I use a satellite connection that's 1 Mbps on a good day) a SPA is almost always a greatly superior

I couldn't disagree more. For anyone on a slower connection (I use a satellite connection that's 1 Mbps on a good day) a SPA is almost always a greatly superior user experience. A server-side rendered application is a blank white screen for roughly 50% of the time I'm using it. Even if a SPA takes longer to initially load, it's much nicer to keep the application actually onscreen while it's loading new content. Even if the SPA takes longer to load content it will often feel as if it's faster because you're looking at the application while it loads rather than staring at a blank screen for 5-10 seconds with every click. When people talk about SSR applications being a better user experience I always assume they're operating on first-world 10+ Mbps broadband connections or cellphones in developed cities, because the difference is night and day for those of us on slower. I also disagree with the idea that SPAs are pushed by developers who have lost touch. Clients frequently push for them and ask questions like "Twitter/Instagram/YouTube don't show these blank white pages after every click, why does my site? Can't you make it like YouTube?" Clients want to have them more than developers want to make them.