It seems to me that the more people use <thing>, the less evidence of quality of <thing> is required by the people using <thing> - everyone just assumes everyone else knows what they're doing.

It becomes something akin to a religion - after all, 2 billion Christians can't be wrong, can they?

Eat shit - billions of flies cannot be wrong. (cit.)

More seriously: once a bit of tech becomes mainstream, it becomes politically easier to use it. Your manager has not heard of <cool tech>, but he did read about React in some business magazine. So when the choice is between React and bheadmaster's Funky Funkness Framework, he'll go with React.

No one ever got fired for choosing React

But some of them should have been.

Can you pick a less antagonistic example?

Would you prefer I used Judaism instead? Or Islam?

Or do you consider my point about network effect in tech stacks being similar to religious beliefs to be antagonistic by itself?

The adage I learned decades ago was "a billion Chinese can't be wrong".

If PP had used that, would it have been antagonistic? Racist?

I thought the origin of this expression was the Elvis greatest hits album 50,000,000 Elvis fans can't be wrong:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50,000,000_Elvis_Fans_Can%27t_...

> everyone just assumes everyone else knows what they're doing.

It’s not just that. There are practical reasons to choose the bandwagon, even if you know it’s not the technically optimal approach.

If you’re planning on hiring junior and mid level engineers, for example, it’s a great help if they already know the technologies involved. Your hiring pool for React is a lot bigger than for a more obscure tool. Additionally, the popular tools also tend to be stable and long lasting, with good support.

So, there are compelling business reasons to choose what’s popular, even if you aren’t making assumptions about the technical quality just because its popular.

Hype, which the web/JS community seems particularly vulnerable to, also plays a big part. Yes proven tech is safe and reliable, but choosing it is so much less fun than getting swept away by the tide of whatever the newest "revolution" is. Don't you want to be part of the wave?

Personally, not for the day job. I love experimenting with new stuff in my free time but when the pressure is on to deliver for the business, I want to go with what I know works.