I think there's a conflation of client-side-SPA === rich/complex here. For all practical purposes, this may be true as SPAs have gotten reliant on complex frame

I think there's a conflation of client-side-SPA === rich/complex here. For all practical purposes, this may be true as SPAs have gotten reliant on complex frameworks like React, Vue, .. In 2019, with ES6, I believe frameworks to be an overkill. When React was introduced, it did goad people into thinking in components, etc. However, classes and higher-order-functions in ES6 allow one to think modularly without a framework. And the Virtual-DOM's value proposition is questionable when DOM updates are properly batched ( like when using https://github.com/wilsonpage/fastdom https://github.com/wilsonpage/fastdom ). Complexity is bound to increase with features, either in the back-end or front. But SPAs (with PWAs) offer advantages of being fully functional when offline, or with spotty connectivity, which is a significant value proposition. Not to mention lower server-side costs (in use-cases where server costs are prohibitive, SPA-PWAs is the only economically viable option). My takeaway is to evaluate not just the reliance on SPA/PWAs but also on complex frameworks with diminishing returns.