This is exactly Termux's point, to subvert Android into linux cheaply. Same for MinGW or MSYS2. I want to invest as few as possible on Andriod or Windows, while still able to use them in the way that I prefer.
My blog is essentially my journal; no one else reads it. However, knowing someone else _might_ read it is making me spend the effort to write in better style, to watch my language, so I would not be embarrassed by myself. That's the value of blog over journal for me.
Yes, you can kiss reactivity good-bye and just render the whole page on any state change.
No, generating HTML string and setting innerHTML is unsafe and slower than necessary. It is better to create DOM elements programmatically. HTML is for serialization of the DOM tree; if everything is done in javascript then you don't need HTML as an intermediate step.
You can use shadow-dom without using web-component. web-component and shadow-dom are orthogonal to eachother:
* web-component is a way to attache javascript to certain elements. There are other ways to do it, but sometime this way feel cleaner, like when you do server-side rendering and not using any javascript framework.
* shadow-dom is a way to organize your styles. As you said there are other ways to do it, but I find it useful because it offers full isolation, and is compatible with browsers 3 years back.
Me too, but you and I cannot afford a faster horse, or even the same horse we once had. The horse they use to offer was an illusion, a bait for the new Tiktok thing. Sooner or later, people will forget that horses once exist.
The frontend world gave you many fancy toys; but they all come with hidden cost. It is your choice: do you want to stay on or get off this treadmill? My need is modest, so I got off. I rewrote my simple SPA from Svelte to SolidJS to no framework at all. Now I have ~1000 LOC javascript, ~500 LOC CSS, all written by myself. No framework, no package, no build step. If you want to see it in action:
It is a fully functional RSS reader. You are welcome to poke under the hood. The key insight is that I don't need reactivity, if re-rendering everything at every event is fast enough.
I believe this style of barebone SPA programming can scale up to at least 10,000 LOC javascript.
Also, the article is about fully managed Wordpress vs self-hosted (or PaaS hosted) SSG. If the choice is between self-hosted Wordpress vs self-hosted SSG, I bet the outcome will be very different.
Now, you may wonder why the OP was not make an apple to apple comparison, like fully managed Wordpress vs fully managed SSG. Well, fully managed SSG does not exists, because it won't sell!
There is no paradox at all: simplicity is beautiful but complexity sells. The author thinks that value come from realized utility. However, in most market segments, value came from perception. With complexity (even useless ones), you can boost perceived value. How do you impress people when all the greatness is under the hood?
I use several SSGs and wrote one myself. I still can't recommend any SSG to people willing to pay.
I think "ethical" in the context of social media means not doing surveillance capitalism. ie: don't cash on user data. Moderation is a orthogonal topic.