The latter half of your comment seems to assume that the primary reason for hateoas would be performance. I'm sure many people would make that argument, and I do think it makes sense even today, but that's not really why I'm into it.

I personally find consuming JSON APIs cumbersome and prone to errors. It seemed like a great idea when we first started doing it, but these days I'm keen to explore other options. I'm under no illusion that HTMX doesn't have it's own tradeoffs, but I like the return-to-tradition approach it's taking.