I'm building a simple page. Ok let's do simple html. Now I need popup for email capture, ok add a bit of hacky js. Now add a menu, could potentially be done with css only.

Now add responsive images. Good luck. You need to process then on server side, then handle them on client side etc...

Now add some customer area...

Add a few more features and it becomes complex.

Why would you want to now throw away all this and rewrite in react when you could just start with react.

In addition I can even migrate my old app to the new one and sometimes I can just copy paste certain components and css styles (thanks to css in Js) and it just works.

Honestly I don’t want to write responsive images manually. I just wrote a system once, now any app reuses the same thing. Same for other stuff. Plus I only need to know react and I can build anything.

You telling me now to learn htmlx syntax and use it sometimes, then use react other times just because… it’s simpler. The benefit is minimal, but now I need to know 2 worlds: react and htmlx.