I'm not arguing JavaScript isn't bad. It's pretty bad. Node.js and React Native are much easier to argue against than JavaScript for the web. It's pretty rare

I'm not arguing JavaScript isn't bad. It's pretty bad. Node.js and React Native are much easier to argue against than JavaScript for the web. It's pretty rare to pick something other than JS for an interactive website (although that is starting to change). I've used React Native for a few years. RN is fine, fast enough for most use-cases. They somewhat recently built a custom JS engine called Hermes that's even faster than v8. > Just about every startup that gets anywhere eventually backs away to native. I really doubt that, but regardless not everything is a startup. Your banking app or that parking app you have to download and use only once will work just fine with the slowness of React Native. That said I like Flutter notably more than React Native (imo Dart is slightly better than TypeScript and way better than JavaScript), and I guess I agree with your larger point, that people aren't exploring their options enough. Flutter might often be the better choice, but people reach for React Native out of familiarity.