Smart server dumb client makes a lot of sense in the web-dev world, where the core client code is not under your control. As soon as you need to write your own

Smart server dumb client makes a lot of sense in the web-dev world, where the core client code is not under your control. As soon as you need to write your own app (Android/iOS/desktop), you should revisit this decision. The server should be able to serve a status code & header that requests the client to back off for a certain time period or with certain exponential parameters. This is a very hard thing to deploy after the fact and can really save your bacon, especially if you have a number of very old clients still out in the field refusing auto-updates. Sure, you can refuse to serve them, but if they get stuck in a tight loop retrying until you do, you're pretty hosed.