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Comment by pen2l | Hacker News Reader

The obvious argument, tried and cliché as it may sound, would be that SPA are anti-web. A healthy web must be indexable and searchable. It almost seems like the rulebook now for some newcomers is to start out with SSR, make use of the auspices of the open web that allow for easy and organic discovery, - and after a significant marketshare has been captured, erecting all types of of lock-in walls, including turning SPA.

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SPAs can be indexed, so the entire premise of your post is invalid.

Maybe Google can by traversing the virtual DOM and other trickery but it's not as simple for other small players. Moreover, in a healthy web I should be able to easily deeplink to something I'm thinking about without jumping through hoops. The SPA web is not as easily discoverable and connected as it is very much meant to be. I think there are valid arguments to be made for SPA, like that SPA need to SPA because they are not just a series of pages and documents but complex applications which need to be that way (though I would still tread with caution: I remember java applets and javascript bits doing complex things, submerged within pages, and that was all fine).

You are conflating things. With urls you can link fine, spa or not. It’s possible to design a single page server side rendered page without properly implemented links.

The things you are describing are not attributable to spa inherently, just a poorly designed site

Has it gotten easier to do deep links correctly with SPAs?

Back when I explored this it felt like working against the grain.

With a lot of SSGs, you can pre-generate all your "entry points" and then after the initial entry, it can be a SPA experience where a client-side router takes over navigation.

You can deeplink with SPAs just fine.

Not sure you understand what indexing is.

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