Not true. People are trying to use the mental model of a huge stateful desktop app and apply it to the web. That's not to say it's a good idea to use that model

Not true. People are trying to use the mental model of a huge stateful desktop app and apply it to the web. That's not to say it's a good idea to use that model, far from it. The web was designed to avoid it for multiple very good reasons. In fact, the success of the web has partially been attributed to those very design decisions, so it might make sense to pay attention to them.