i absolutely hate how the modern web just fails to load if one has javascript turned off. i, as a user, should be able to switch off javascript and have the site work exactly as it does with javascript turned on. it’s not a hard concept, people.
but you ask candidates to explain “graceful degradation” and they’ll sit and look at you with a blank stare.
Blame the ui frameworks like react for this. It’s normalized a large cross-section of devs not learning anything about how a server works. They’ve essentially grown up with a calculator without ever having to learn long division.
Not all frameworks are bad
The problem is the devs/owners not understanding basic fundamentals. They could see a major financial benefit if they make the page snappy and light but apparently no one at these companies realizes that.
PE from server rendering only to a full interactive SPA in the browser is really not trivial both for frameworks and app devs
there are a handful of frameworks that support it fairly ergonomically now but it’s a discipline that takes time and effort
also disabling javascript is a tiny minority use case