> Right, so yet another way to ask my question is: why don't web frameworks fix this by "evolving" toward a widget-like design so that web devs can think about this more like native devs?

"a" widget like system presupposes one specific (not merely faintly authoritarian) vision of what fits best, what is destined to be. there's plenty of widget like systems on the web, react is little but a component/widget framework. just not with the specific design pallet imagined.

many webcomponent like systems exist, manifest across many many web frameworks & libraries. we can probably spend days trying to draw fine lines of difference between what a react component is & a wodget is but for reals, they're very shared in essence. the differences are less remarkable, clearly to me, than the similarities. and there are so many endless design systems to pick from.

backbone is a still not bad option that wprked hard to re-emact classically desktop patterns. the web got better for itself, the web kept moving & evolving. i dont think that's all progress, that the territory has proved itself yet, but it hasnt been stuck in decades old patterns. but systems lile backbone show how expressible those patterns have been.