Re:One Year with Next.js App Router – Why We're Moving On
by BoorishBears on Thursday October 30, 2025 @02:38PM
(#45763578)
The niche Next dominated before they started chasing the RSC dragon was scaling SPAs with complex frontend state.
React Query and atom based state management offered nice alternatives to Redux/Context hell, and Next could have just hung up major architectural refactors for QoL updates.
They want to dominate the headless Shopify/CMS niche, but that doesn't have to mean dragging Next.js along for the ride. It was a business/branding decision, not one that actually benefits most users of what they had already had.
React expanded into server-side, it's messy now, but not that complicated.
Things look like the SpaceX rocket motor with all the diagnostic stuff still on, but in a few revisions it'll likely look (and feel) more sleek.
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And it's true that the end-to-end experience matters at restaurants, be they fine dining 3 thousand Gault Milleu stars or a worldwide franchise with so perverse incentives built in that it should be 18+ anyway (and not just because of the hyper-palatable sauces).
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And the argument is that these things matter especially when you have a lot of users.
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That said the people responsible for docs at NextJS should be sent to the fullstack mines.