The problem is the server has a connection to the database that’s infinitely more reliable than the client -> server. I’ve dealt with garbage REST APIs with to

The problem is the server has a connection to the database that’s infinitely more reliable than the client -> server. I’ve dealt with garbage REST APIs with tons of sequential calls and in low reliability scenarios 1 call is a massive improvement over a scenario where 4-5 sequential calls need to be made and if/when one of them fails you need to start over. Now the client has to handle result caching and all the different error states because some server dev couldn't be bothered to batch a few calls and return all the required models.