Ooh let's talk about React for a bit.
Preface: pretty much all my projects use React, I've contracted for the React and React Native teams and have spoken at React conferences. I'm friends with many current and former members of the React team.
Facebook's ownership of React has a deep and inextricable impact in how that library is developed.
It can't be that bad, right? you ask. Like, Facebook is *bad* but React is just an open source frontend library? What can be malicious about JSX and hooks?
But consider: React's development is tested on Facebook's products, including the main Facebook site.
Every user experience improvement built off addictive "engagement". Every performance boost becoming more effective at channeling people into conspiracy theories and extremism.
Every user experience improvement built off addictive "engagement". Every performance boost becoming more effective at channeling people into conspiracy theories and extremism.
This bleeds into the site's documentation itself: reactjs.org/docs/getting-s…
"Users" "Profiles" "Likes", Facebook is the template, the Prototypical React app.
"Users" "Profiles" "Likes", Facebook is the template, the Prototypical React app.
I've talked with Dan about React's philosophy. React is built for *massive scale*. Facebook-level scale. Sure, it's perfectly fine for your blog or cute app, but it's a tool for megacorporations to influence the world at scale.
We can see this with the focus on Concurrent mode. While they are definitely cool features, they also fit nicely into making a gargantuan site like Facebook more responsive, and thusly more addicting.
This emphasis on "scale", on "user experience" can be seen in the fact that so many social media sites and tech companies use React (if they don't have their own version lol). Twitter, Pinterest, Slack, AirBnB… all React sites.
Could it be, not only because React is the "best tool for the job", but because many of these companies have the same engagement and revenue model as Facebook and React optimizes for that model? 🤔
Anyway, this is just food for thought, and to emphasize the fact that tech is never neutral, even for something seemingly simple like a frontend library.
There have been calls for React to be "moved to a foundation" like GraphQL, and I used to join that chorus, but I honestly am not sure it'll help. You just move from a library backed by Facebook to a library backed by… Facebook, Twitter and AirBnB.
