I have certainly seen people reach for websockets to just reverse the direction of data flow from server to client. On HTTP/1.1, the main issue people can hit i

I have certainly seen people reach for websockets to just reverse the direction of data flow from server to client. On HTTP/1.1, the main issue people can hit is the max connection limit. This connection limit does not apply when using SSE over HTTP/2+, because server connections are multiplexed onto a single connection. I also prefer starting with SSE where possible, as it is simple conceptually, easy to implement (even from scratch), and doesn't introduce a secondary client to server path. Having that ability (even if unused) tends to create a temptation to use it, and when that happens it introduces a choice of whether to use normal HTTP requests or make an equivalent request over websocket. Using websocket for things HTTP can handle is a mistake, in my opinion, because HTTP is simpler than websocket to fetch state. Of course, if you need websocket, you need it, but there are some that just want to play with it in production or add it to their resume. I suspect that dynamic is what causes the 'cargo culting' you talk about.