The Truth About React Native

I am regularly surprised with just how popular React Native has gotten. Why am

I talking about this right now, though?

Well, when I was out on my trip to React Miami, a video came out, a very interesting video about how React Native isn't as popular as you might think.

This is created by Tastemaker Design.

It's his third ever video. And

considering how new he is to YouTube, he did a phenomenal job. I'm genuinely

impressed. And he brings up some really important things in this video. A

surprising number of which I agree on.

But there are a couple fundamental flaws in the things he research and the way he presents them that I feel like I have to call out. I really hate doing a response

call out. I really hate doing a response like this to a smaller YouTuber. I'm

going to go out of my way to make sure all of you go watch the original because there's a lot of good information there and it's good to get different perspectives from different developers.

But just know not everything in this video is 100% accurate and there are more layers of depth to these things that are worth considering. But that's

why you're here. Instead of watching a nine-minute long video from a new creator, you're watching this is going to be an hour. I have a feeling. Yeah

we have a lot to talk about here. From

how these big companies actually use React Native to the popularity of the tools across the entire ecosystem. I

have contacted a ton of people from both inside and outside of the React Native world. I even scraped the app store with

world. I even scraped the app store with a friend in order to get the most up-to-date realistic data we possibly can for this. But nobody's paying me for any of that time. So, we need to get a quick word in from today's sponsor so I

can make sure the team gets fed and then we'll go straight to it. Today's sponsor

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And it's so cool being able to justify an ad spot in a video for my own product. back to whatever that nur was

product. back to whatever that nur was talking about. If you haven't already

talking about. If you haven't already watched this video, again, I highly recommend you go watch the original first. Rather than just me playing the

first. Rather than just me playing the whole thing, reacting throughout, I'm going to take clips of the parts that I think are most important for us to discuss and then go dive into those. So

if you feel like you're missing context it's cuz you are. Watch the original.

Anyways, not even going to bother with a clip for this first part. Just know I totally agree with the starting section here. It's absurd how much just slop

here. It's absurd how much just slop content there is about React Native good, why everyone is using it. I agree.

It's all slop. I hate that these posts exist and that they misunderstand things as much as they do. There's a point where I start to disagree though.

Finally, the React Native showcase hosted by Meta Open Source clearly states that Walmart uses React Native for iOS and Android. The only problem is the Walmart app doesn't use React

Native. What's going on here? Okay, and

Native. What's going on here? Okay, and

here is where the disagreements start. I

will first and foremost say the current state of the showcase for React Native on like the React Native docs, it's not great. It's not very up to-date. It's

great. It's not very up to-date. It's

somewhat misleading and I don't like that they link to individual apps especially when the whole app might not be in React Native. But there are some nuances here that we need to understand.

First nuance is the distinction between the whole app being React Native versus part of the app being React Native.

React Native integrates with native apps. So, a lot of this video, we'll get

apps. So, a lot of this video, we'll get to this multiple points throughout seems to imply that an app has to be entirely React Native or not at all React Native, despite the fact that the

React Native project was started as a way to integrate things into existing native apps. The point was that if you

native apps. The point was that if you had a team that needed to be able to update things more quickly or didn't have mobile devs that wanted to embed a simple UI into an existing application

like you know the ads UI in the mobile apps for Facebook, the React Native would allow for the ads team to have a simple integration layer that works very similar to what they're used to on web that they can embed into different

platforms like mobile without having to hire a bunch of iOS and Android engineers just to do that one thing.

Companies like Facebook have more and more so been focused on vertically slicing their teams. So instead of having a back-end team and a front-end team at your big company, you would have

a ads team or a feed team or a messages team that own the backend, the front end, the UI design and all the different pieces. And React Native makes it way

pieces. And React Native makes it way easier for vertical slicing simply because you can have a smaller front-end section that has more control over the different platforms. That doesn't mean

Facebook doesn't have an iOS team, but they're a platforms team that's trying to make it so all the different people building with all their different stuff can throw it into the same Facebook app and have it all work together. Another

nuance here is that companies have multiple apps. While it is definitely misleading

apps. While it is definitely misleading to say a company is using React Native when their main app isn't, in particular, I think the Skype case is relatively brutal here where it says Skype uses React Native, but as far as I

know, the native Skype app on iOS and Android doesn't. So, I get why they

Android doesn't. So, I get why they would be upset about that. Definitely

seems misleading. What you have to realize is these companies are building a lot of things for a lot of platforms and React Native has benefited them all greatly. No one's trying to

greatly. No one's trying to intentionally mislead when they include Skype or Microsoft in the list of companies using React Native. They're

putting that there because they have friends who work there on React Native stuff. The most egregious case of this

stuff. The most egregious case of this is Amazon, which we'll get to in a little bit. But know that this is a very

little bit. But know that this is a very important thing to consider. The Walmart

example, I admit, is particularly brutal, especially if the docs link to the Walmart app on iOS, cuz as far as I know, it does not use React Native. That

doesn't mean they don't, though. They

are currently actively hiring for a ton of different React Native positions. So

I don't know why they'd be hiring for this if they weren't using it. It is

Jamon's understanding that they are using it for things like their internal global integrative fulfillment app and stuff like that. Companies like Walmart building small specific tools as mobile

apps because so many of these companies have people working on the ground.

Previously, they'd have these crazy chaotic PDA systems that I I used to work retail at Staples. I'm way too familiar with all this stuff. It sucks.

Most of these companies have moved over to using iPhones and iPads as their method of on the floor employees doing things like scanning a code on a shelf before they put the thing in a box or

trying to do shrinkage tracking and figuring out where items are in their stores or just managing the fleet of drivers or managing your own routes as with an iPad mounted in your car. just

all these types of things at the scale of Walmart. You build custom software to

of Walmart. You build custom software to solve these problems. And React Native made it way easier for these companies to do that. Walmart's not just hiring React Native engineers to let them sit

and do nothing. To say Walmart isn't using React Native because you couldn't find the little file you're looking for in their main app is just blatantly misleading. As much so, if not more so

misleading. As much so, if not more so than what we're accusing the React Native docs of doing there. Should they

have linked the official iOS app? No.

But can you now say that Walmart doesn't use React Native simply because they don't use it in their main app?

Absolutely not. Why would they be hiring these people otherwise? This next

section is where things start to really fall apart. And I'll be honest before we

fall apart. And I'll be honest before we even start it. I have a bias here that I talk with a lot of the people who work on React Native directly and build with it at meta. So I have insidefo not

everybody has. So I get how you could

everybody has. So I get how you could see this page is misleading, but you should ask questions before confidently making this content. This part has a lot of errors. Let's just go through it. The

of errors. Let's just go through it. The

problems begin in the first section with the meta apps. By the way, if you didn't know, Meta is the company that created React Native. The first link they show

React Native. The first link they show the Facebook iOS app is not built with React Native. Again, we need to explain

React Native. Again, we need to explain this key first part. React Native

integrates with native apps. The way

that Facebook uses React Native isn't as the root for the whole experience on the app. That's not realistic with the

app. That's not realistic with the amount of effort that's gone into this app. Like the Facebook app is one of the

app. Like the Facebook app is one of the biggest, most complex code bases in the world. The goal of adding React Native

world. The goal of adding React Native was to reduce complexity in certain areas that needed to move faster that didn't need to benefit from having a dedicated like native team working on it. And there are a handful of things in

it. And there are a handful of things in the Facebook app that are entirely built in React Native. The biggest by far is marketplace on the Facebook app. The

entire marketplace section on both the iOS and Android apps was built with React Native. And that's one of the

React Native. And that's one of the biggest products that Facebook has right now. Marketplace is one of the only

now. Marketplace is one of the only reasons I personally open Facebook. And

the marketplace experience on mobile is great. One of the reasons why you don't

great. One of the reasons why you don't know the Facebook apps using React Native is because the marketplace works really well. You can't tell when you hop

really well. You can't tell when you hop between the different sections because React Native is native. It feels great.

Obviously, they have a huge benefit of being the company that makes React Native. So if they do something wrong

Native. So if they do something wrong they can nudge the team, have them come in and help and all of that. I'm not

saying everyone can make a React Native experience as good as Facebook can. But

just because it's good doesn't mean it's not React Native. This isn't even some big secret. Facebook literally says it

big secret. Facebook literally says it in one of their engineering blog posts.

They use another framework they developed called Component Kit.

Component Kit is the higher level structuring they use for the apps. But

components in component kit can be React Native. Component kit was the higher

Native. Component kit was the higher level change they made in order to allow for different teams to pick different technologies and a lot of those teams pick weird stuff. One of my personal favorites is project light speeded. I'm

going to ask chat quick. What do you think the Facebook Messenger app is written in? If you know, don't people

written in? If you know, don't people already are saying it. Yeah, someone got to before I could even start. Fun fact

the entire No worries at all. You did

your thing, Ziko. Thank you for being you. Project Lightseed was a project at

you. Project Lightseed was a project at Facebook to rewrite the entire messenger code base primarily through using SQLite

because SQLite was a really performant cross-platform layer they could use to control the app. They used the native OS wherever possible using the UI with dynamic templates powered by SQLite

using SQLite as a universal system and building a server broker to operate as a universal gateway between Messenger and its server features. You know how hilarious that is that they are powering the UI and the templating through

SQLite. They try chaotic stuff at

SQLite. They try chaotic stuff at Facebook and the architecture of the apps isn't to bet allin on React Native.

It's to allow the flexibility to try different things in different places.

But we're talking about a company that for one of its most important apps ships a literal SQL migration to update your UI. Like this is kind of chaotic. I

UI. Like this is kind of chaotic. I

wouldn't be so harsh on this point, but the next thing he says is really really, really wrong. So, I have to call it out. The Facebook app might be using

it out. The Facebook app might be using React Native in some indirect way like embedding a React Native web application in a web view for a subset of the pages.

I I might be wrong on this and if there if I am a meta engineer will contact me and I will pin it. Is a comment on the top of the video here. Meta does not use

RN for web anywhere. React Native for web is a chaotic project that is incredibly hard for me to recommend.

React Native for web is also something I've never seen anyone use on mobile at any point for any reason. Do I have to do like the top level like what makes React special thing? I'm going to do it quick. I'm going to go as fast as I can

quick. I'm going to go as fast as I can blasting through like how React works.

So if I have a React app and it's something like app body div sub nerds

don't forget to sub. Only 50% of you are subbed. Sub to taste maker as well.

subbed. Sub to taste maker as well.

Hopefully this code all makes sense to everybody. We have an app. It has a body

everybody. We have an app. It has a body and it has a div. We could split it a little more. So I'll put like a button.

little more. So I'll put like a button.

Hi button. Cool. Very complex code we have here. If we were to architect this

have here. If we were to architect this as a tree, these squares, we'd have app at the top here, app has one child which is

body, and then body has two children. It

has that div, and it has the button. This all hopefully makes sense

button. This all hopefully makes sense to you guys. If you've been around a while, you can see how this JSX HTML

like tree becomes this actual node graph on the side. Apps the root has body as a child. Body has div and button as its

child. Body has div and button as its children. These can have their own

children. These can have their own children, too. You get the idea. But

children, too. You get the idea. But

what's the HTML that comes out of this?

Well, HTML in this case is going to be very similar because app doesn't exist.

It's just a JSX abstraction. Here's the

actual DOM content when this is all done. If you were to put like an inline

done. If you were to put like an inline function or whatever there, you can understand how that would all work. But

the way that this becomes that is a coupleart process. So you write this JSX

coupleart process. So you write this JSX code. It then becomes this tree here.

code. It then becomes this tree here.

We'll call this the virtual DOM. That's

what it is. This is the VDOM. And then

the VDOM puts out the actual graph of what the real page content is.

Technically what it does is it maps this to a node tree of its own that is what should actually be on the page and then turns that into the HTML content. So we

have our JSX code. It creates the VDOM with all the nodes. It then calculates what the real DOM will look like as a result of that and then it applies that to the UI and then when a change happens it checks to see what changed in the

VDOM and then it only applies the changes to the corresponding elements.

What's really cool about React Native is that you can draw a line here and change what turns this virtual DOM into real elements. React Native is a different

elements. React Native is a different translation layer here. Instead of

translating from a virtual DOM to traditional HTML, it will translate from a virtual DOM to something else. That's

the native part of React Native. It can

be whatever you want. By default, they support iOS and Android native applications. So instead of having body

applications. So instead of having body div and button, you would have text opacity or view like the different react native elements. Each of those is bound

native elements. Each of those is bound to a native primitive in the native OS code so that you can render a native tab bar, a native touchable, all these native elements that you would expect

from these platforms. React Native for web is reimplementing the traditional virtual DOM to React DOM with React Native primitives instead. It's an

additional layer that isn't necessary but if you want to use React Native code on native and on web with just one codebase, RN for web is pretty cool. The

reason RN for web is its own crazy complex story. I I talk about a lot of

complex story. I I talk about a lot of videos. I don't have one dedicated to

videos. I don't have one dedicated to it, but RN for web was originally built by Twitter because the lead engineer running web wanted to restrict what access the devs had to different DOM primitives. They didn't want the devs to

primitives. They didn't want the devs to have access to all the different elements, all the different styles, and all the different things you can do in the browser. And they built RN for web

the browser. And they built RN for web as a way to abstract just the parts they wanted the devs to have access to. It's

intentionally a limited set of web primitives through React Native. You

need a really good reason to use React Native for web. And Facebook isn't doing that. Facebook is using React Native for

that. Facebook is using React Native for different parts of the native app. And I

think this is the fundamental confusion that exists throughout this video that Tastemaker did. Apps can use React

Tastemaker did. Apps can use React Native for some things. They can use Cordova and all these other web tools for other things. and they can use native and jetack and all the fancy cool tools for other parts too. Just because

an app isn't using React Native for its initial load doesn't mean it's not using React Native and it doesn't mean they don't have more React Native engineers than traditional native engineers working on it. But the the point of this

here is to showcase the difference between React Native and React web and React Native for web. You're effectively

doing one additional translation to get it into the DOM when you use RN for web.

to once again agree with Tastemaker though they should be way more specific about how they are using React Native in these things. If we are betting on React

these things. If we are betting on React Native because we trust Facebook because they use it there, they should tell us a little more about how they use it. They

do in things like React Comp, but they don't in these docs. So, if you're an external person who's not part of the React community, you haven't seen these talks. You haven't had conversations

talks. You haven't had conversations with these people. You don't know that.

And the docs are not doing a good enough job explaining that to people. Next up

are the Facebook and Instagram MetaQuest apps. I didn't actually check whether

apps. I didn't actually check whether these use React Native, but I wanted to include them because of their uniquely abysmal ratings in the MetaQuest store.

We need to talk about the MetaQuest. If you're somehow not

MetaQuest. If you're somehow not familiar, the MetaQuest is a VR headset that was originally by Oculus, a company that Meta acquired, and now it is the

MetaQuest instead. They've mostly killed

MetaQuest instead. They've mostly killed the Oculus branding. The Quest is a very, very good headset. I'm a VR nerd.

I'll admit to that. I am what I am. I'm

sorry. I love VR. I actually still like my Vision Pro, as cringe as it might be and as absurdly expensive as it is. The

Oculus series has always broken my brain in terms of what it's capable of. I've

seen things I could never have imagined before inside of Oculus. And I want to give credit where it's due to that. The

MetaQuest team works really hard to make groundbreaking experiences. And the

groundbreaking experiences. And the reason for that isn't because they're making a bunch of money on VR. I think

they've realized that chip sailed long ago. They seem to genuinely love it.

ago. They seem to genuinely love it.

It's pretty obvious that Zuck has some weird obsession with VR AR stuff. Not

like I'm going to take over the world with it obsession, but just genuinely cares too much about it. Like I see a excitement in him when he talks about it that he only has in certain things. The

reason we're talking about Quest is because a significant portion of the Quest experience is built in React

Native. There is so much React Native in

Native. There is so much React Native in the Quest. It's actually insane. From

the Quest. It's actually insane. From

the actual platform for building 3D Quest first experiences, which is a desktop app they built in React Native to the shop in the entirety of like the UI for it, all React Native. A bunch of

different apps in the app store for Quest React Native. The settings page vary calls React Native. A ton of the UI and OS level stuff is React Native. They

use React Native a ton for Quest. And a

huge part of why they've been so focused on performance for React Native has been to make the Quest experience better. And

the results are pretty damn cool. I have

been really impressed both with the experience developing for Quest with React Native and the experience in these apps. I know that the reviews for the

apps. I know that the reviews for the Instagram and Facebook app for Quest are bad. Yeah, 99 reviews on the app. Who's

bad. Yeah, 99 reviews on the app. Who's

going to be more motivated to leave a review on a half completed app for Quest? Someone who's really excited it

Quest? Someone who's really excited it can exist or somebody who's frustrated doesn't do all the niche things they specifically want it to do. I hate to pull the like popularity card, but

you'll learn this quick taste maker.

Most comments are inherently negative because negativity pushes you through the boundary of no contact much faster than positivity. It takes a much

than positivity. It takes a much stronger positive feeling for somebody to be urged to leave a comment. It takes

a very small negative feeling for most people to bother doing it. So that's the main reason the reviews are so bad. It's

also cuz to be frank the apps don't have all the features people are expecting.

That doesn't mean they're bad. In fact

my experience with these apps was very different because when I was talking with the React Native team about the Quest and all the work they were doing they like they didn't beg, but they were very close to it to try and get me to go

try the Facebook and Instagram apps because they were so proud of them. They

were genuinely so hyped on what they had built. And it was very small teams under

built. And it was very small teams under a very small timeline trying to reimplement from scratch these huge chaotic experiences. Like the amount of

chaotic experiences. Like the amount of engineering work that went into the entirety of Facebook is hard to fathom.

the number of features, the chaos of their API, the fact that a small team could get together a mostly working version of it as quickly as they did and it feels awesome to use. It's super

fast and snappy. The UI is stunning.

It's just missing a bunch of features and it crashes sometimes when you go to a comment thread that's using one of the features they haven't implemented yet.

It's also clear they haven't seen much usage of these apps, so they are divesting from them. They're not putting a lot of time into them because they have not gotten the popularity or the sentiment they were hoping for. But they

are well-built apps and I think they are good showcases of what React Native can do in weird environments because again React Native renders natively. The React

Native Facebook app isn't some web UI.

The React Native Facebook app for Quest is using native Quest primitives. It's

really really cool. It's genuinely so cool. And like seeing the 3D experience

cool. And like seeing the 3D experience when you're going through Facebook and like going to an album and having the photos layered, it felt awesome. And the

fact they did that all in React Native is genuinely hype. Scrolling down to the Amazon section, we see more problems with the showcase. When you follow the Amazon App Store link, it tells you that

the Amazon App Store is about to be discontinued on Android. Okay, it's

funny linking to something that's about to be discontinued. That was a good dig.

The rest we have more to say about though. Next, we have the Amazon Kindle

though. Next, we have the Amazon Kindle app. This one's a little tricky. There

app. This one's a little tricky. There

are references to React Native and the Android app, but only as related to com/azon/identity/off. However, there

com/azon/identity/off. However, there are 20,000 references to Android X/Compose, which indicates the use of the Jetack Compose UI framework. My

guess is that the Kindle app uses React Native for a login screen, but the rest of the app is built with Jetack Compose. And now we have to go back to

Compose. And now we have to go back to the core points from the list. Once

again, I need to remind you guys, React Native integrates with native apps. You

can build something with Jetack Compose and have a bunch of React Native views.

You can even make an app that's entirely React Native but uses Jetack Compose as build pipeline. Totally fine. People do

build pipeline. Totally fine. People do

that. Really cool stuff. And companies

have multiple apps. This part hurt me particularly deeply because of the depth of Amazon's investment into React Native. The only way you could think

Native. The only way you could think that Amazon isn't using React Native is if you pay no attention to what's going on in React Native. Taste maker brings up Hermes, the JavaScript runtime, much earlier in the video. What he never

brings up is static herase. Staticase is

an attempt to rethink how JavaScript becomes code that runs on your phone by recompiling your type- safe JS code either through Flow or TypeScript to

assembly, not to Rust, not to C, to straight assembly in order to make insanely fast stuff. And this

presentation on static Hermes was from Svetan who works at Meta. But a

significant portion of the investment in this project has been coming from Amazon. So Meta made this work with

Amazon. So Meta made this work with Flow. Amazon came in and added

Flow. Amazon came in and added TypeScript support to a JS to assembly compiler. Do you understand the size of

compiler. Do you understand the size of that lift? Do you think they're doing it

that lift? Do you think they're doing it for fun? No. They're doing this because

for fun? No. They're doing this because they want React Native to be so good that they can default to it for everything. And they are already using

everything. And they are already using it for a ton of different things.

Infinite Red, which is a company that is cited in this video, is a React Native expertise consulting group that I have worked with. They sponsored me in the

worked with. They sponsored me in the past. They still sponsor videos here and

past. They still sponsor videos here and there, so account for biases there.

Jamon's a good friend of mine. He was a friend for years before I was ever officially affiliated with them. He's

invited me to keynote events. I've been

hanging out with him and the crew at Infinite Red forever, and I've had plenty of disagreements with them. I was

really on the expo side when initially there was Ignite versus Expo and since then Infinite Reds went all in on the expo stuff too. But yeah, I do not always agree with Infinite Red, but

yeah, I love these guys dearly. I trust

them super closely. It's heartbreaking

to see them accused as like the sponsor paying to bias me when they're one of the sponsors I am the closest of friends with. Like those guys are homies. I

with. Like those guys are homies. I

would talk about them without the sponsorship. They are almost doing us a

sponsorship. They are almost doing us a favor at the channel by sponsoring us.

The reason I bring all of them up is because Infinite Red hosts a conference in Portland called Chain React. It's the

biggest US React Native conference. The

reason I'm bringing this conference up is because Jamon hosted a panel at it last year that included a bunch of very important people. one of which is an

important people. one of which is an Amazon employee and they talk all about the different places that they are using React Native at Amazon as well as Chiara from Microsoft who's again talking about

the places they're using it Microsoft this is an awesome crew of people sharing very useful insights about how React Native is being used different places I'll let Chris from Amazon say

how they're using React Native so can you tell me what what does Amazon use React Native for working with Eli to update the showcase for React Native's web uh the docs for website like and and

the question was like how many how many different projects at Amazon use React Native. So I started first going through

Native. So I started first going through like our code repos and then I started talking to some different teams and realized like independently all these different consumer product lines across the company have been using React Native

for years. So first off you obviously

for years. So first off you obviously have the shopping app like there's aspects of the shopping app that are native and there's many many views inside the shopping app that are fully React native. Um then we saw some

React native. Um then we saw some interesting use cases like for sure like Amazon music, Amazon photos like those experiences across iOS and Android those are react native. Um but then you start walking into some of the wild uses of

React Native. So Kindle like if you use

React Native. So Kindle like if you use Kindle like how many has the the e- in device? Yeah. So that like that's an

device? Yeah. So that like that's an implementation of React Native straight on top of C. And so like I think the more that I dug in my mind was blown of like you know here we are thinking oh

we're really you know in app store and devices were starting to you know ramp up into uh React Native because of demand and you're like no no this has been since

2017 like it's been used throughout all these different groups um and we just weren't all talking. So, it's been pretty fun to have like we have this React Native interest group internally

like 600 plus engineers all trying to share modules like um projects we're working on. It's pretty wild. Did you

working on. It's pretty wild. Did you

guys hear that? Not only are they using React Native all over the company, not only do they have a 600 plus engineer interest group working to make React Native more common, not only are they

independently picking React Native different places throughout the company because Amazon's really big on like letting different teams pick their own stack. They built their own react native

stack. They built their own react native rendering engine for raw C for the Kindle e- in display devices. What? But

they're not using it in the store app yet. They are using it in the store app

yet. They are using it in the store app but they're also building their own rendering engines for React Native for different platforms because they like it that much. The reason Kindle is listed

that much. The reason Kindle is listed here isn't because they are lying about it. It's there because the engineers at

it. It's there because the engineers at Amazon asked for it to be because the Kindle itself is using React Native. I

think that's super cool. and to yeah no like they are heavily using it. Would it

be nice if they gave more info on this page? Yes, absolutely. Would it be nice

page? Yes, absolutely. Would it be nice if they at least linked to that stream to that recording? Yeah, but one of the accusations that is le levying this video is that this whole page is biased because Infinite Red made it. How would

it look if they linked to their own YouTube channel as the source for something? It's a tough balance and I

something? It's a tough balance and I think this page is not in a great state but it's really hard to find the balance for things like that. Like how much do you explain without being overwhelming or annoying? How much can you explain

or annoying? How much can you explain without violating different agreements with other companies? Like it's it's a hard balance to do something like this.

Like how cool is Amazon with you advertising your framework using their tools that is no longer just you clear somebody go give a talk. That's now a marketing back and forth that takes

months to resolve. I'm going to be honest guys. I don't even know how to

honest guys. I don't even know how to include this section because it's full of a lot of reaches. We're just going to go through it piece by piece rather than like play the clip and talk. I'm just

going to go through it with you guys.

First, he says like all these apps aren't using React Native. Hard to

verify for any given one of them, but I'll take his word for it. This list is not great. I agree there. They're

not great. I agree there. They're

overhauling it as we speak. At this

point, you might be questioning the value of going through the React Native showcase since it's all anecdotal evidence about the popularity of React Native. I have a lot to respond to

Native. I have a lot to respond to there, but we're going to skip that for a sec cuz I have something else I can use instead that is a lot less anecdotal. This next part is largely

anecdotal. This next part is largely thanks to Bacon Bricks, Evan Bacon. If

you're not already familiar with him he's a legend over at the expo team who has been a wizard in everything from Lego to React to now React Native especially for a while now. He's

actually hanging out in chat answering questions. Incredibly helpful human

questions. Incredibly helpful human being. One of the best justifications of

being. One of the best justifications of using React Native is that Evan Bacon is somebody who can now help you out on stuff. like legitimately he's his

stuff. like legitimately he's his knowledge of weird niche build stuff on iOS and Android combined with his knowledge of crazy React performance stuff. He's he knows what he's talking

stuff. He's he knows what he's talking about. One of the many crazy things he

about. One of the many crazy things he has done is he built a tool to automate the process of reverse engineering bundles similar to what the video that we just watched was doing. Rather than

manually downloading each one and trying to grab a given like file name in your decompiled binary, he automated it for the top 100 apps of every single category on the app store. He runs a

check every couple weeks to see what the trends are in the marketplace. And here

is his most recent run. Apparently

Apple made a change is making it hard again. I'm sure I'll have it fixed soon

again. I'm sure I'll have it fixed soon but this run was on March 21st, so just about a month ago. The sports category of the top 100 apps, 29 of them were

using React Native. One less than before. Of the shopping category, 28 of

before. Of the shopping category, 28 of them were using React Native.

Entertainment 26. Food 26. Business 24.

Medical 24. This is all out of a hundred. So in these very prominent

hundred. So in these very prominent categories, about a fourth, give or take, are using React Native. And you'll

notice most of this is green because more and more new apps that are getting into these top hundreds are React Native because the React Native teams historically can move much faster, ship updates quicker, and build into the hype

machine more effectively. There are

exceptions like two React Native apps fell out of the food category, but then you have a huge one like the Burger King app, which is largely React Native. We

also see indeed job search here, which is a very important piece we'll be referencing in a second. Hopefully this

helps emphasize the point I'm trying to drive here, which is React Native is actually quite popular. It isn't popular in things like games because games shouldn't be built in React Native. The

same way apps should be built in Flutter because Flutter is a game engine. Games

shouldn't be built in React Native because React Native is an app engine.

Apparently, Indeed is migrating towards React Native. They're not entirely React

React Native. They're not entirely React Native just yet. DICE would disagree.

Oh, dice. Okay, people are missing the Flutter is a game engine joke and I don't care enough to explain it. Just if

you don't know how Flutter works, go look into it. It's not using native anything at all. This is a really good call out from check here. It's also

worth noting that we're talking about public apps right now. Publicly

available things you go download from the app store, not private apps for businesses. Things that aren't released

businesses. Things that aren't released in the app store, things that are distributed through test flight and other distribution methods. Those are

disproportionately React Native, which is something we cannot see in any of these charts. Where we can see this is

these charts. Where we can see this is indeed job listings. I know a lot of people are picking frameworks not necessarily based on how many installs they get rather they are picking them

based on the popularity of hiring for those. So if your goal is to get a job

those. So if your goal is to get a job in one of the options, React Native seems to be one of your best bets here because according to Indeed, there are over 300 jobs open right now for React

Native versus Swift UI with 25 and Jetack Compose with around 25 as well.

So yeah, we could look at all sorts of other numbers and theorize all we want but React Native is very popular. Even

if, as we see in this video coming up you make the right subset and it looks like Jetack Compose is really famous.

Before we get there, there's one other part here I want to respond to, which is about Infinite Red. I think there are two key takeaways from what we've seen here. The first takeaway is that there

here. The first takeaway is that there are corporate interests involved in the marketing of mobile app frameworks.

Although the React Native showcase website is hosted by Meta, the actual list of apps is maintained by a company called Infinite Red, a React Native consulting company you may have encountered on YouTube at some point.

Consulting companies are extremely prevalent in the mobile app space. Yes

they are because mobile apps are hard to build and it requires a team of specialized people to get it right and React Native is one of the better tools for these specialized developers to help

teams be able to maintain a quality app without requiring a bunch of native engineers to work for them. The next

part here is what really frustrates me though with React Native and Flutter consultants constantly writing puff pieces about their respective frameworks. What's going on here? The

frameworks. What's going on here? The

puff pieces being cited here are React Native Radio, which is Jamon's podcast where he talks to other React Native devs about React Native stuff. That's a

podcast where he talks about the thing he's interested in. It's not pretending React Native is huge. The examples here it's static Hermes, which we just talked about, the JavaScript compiler that benefits people well of the React

ecosystem. He talks with a company that

ecosystem. He talks with a company that migrated to Expo from not using Expo with React Native. None of this is a puff piece. This is like real deep in

puff piece. This is like real deep in the weeds discussion about how React Native is used. I don't know how you could frame it that way. I can see how you'd frame the things on the right this way with Base Flow because they did puff

pieces on Flutter, but that is Flutter not React Native. And as you might see from the screenshot here, all of those posts are from 2023 or older. The puff

pieces problem is real. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that all the weird crappy Dev.2 posts that were AI

crappy Dev.2 posts that were AI generated about how popular React Native is are good. They're not. They're

terrible. But you cannot accuse the consultancies that are betting their business's livelihoods on React Native because they see very clearly how it benefits the companies they work with. I

I know it's a crazy thing to say, but maybe the people who worked in other technologies and said, "No, React Native is the one that makes the most sense for our clients. We're going to throw away

our clients. We're going to throw away our huge history with elixir, a language that I deeply love and care about," which is what Infinite Red originally started doing. They were an elixir

started doing. They were an elixir consultancy that moved to React Native because they saw more success with their customers with it. Also, on the topic of hiring, if you're really interested in these things, Expo, you know, Evan Bacon

and crew, they are currently hiring for ES Build, Expo Router, and the Expo web experience because React Native is doing so well and growing so fast. Speaking of

which, Evan, have you seen this video?

Because there's a part coming up that you're going to hate. We'll get

there in a sec. It's the npm download section, but let's keep blasting through this. UI kit and Swift UI shouldn't be

this. UI kit and Swift UI shouldn't be grouped together. They're very different and

together. They're very different and there's a lot of handwavy acting as though Swift UI is more popular than it is throughout it. We're about to get to another section of that in a second. The

newest AI apps including Copilot Perplexity CatchBT Claude Deepseek Gemini, and Grock are all built with native code. This makes a lot of sense

native code. This makes a lot of sense when you realize how these things tend to happen at the big companies that are doing a lot of these. Oh, we need a mobile app. We should hire a mobile team

mobile app. We should hire a mobile team to build our mobile app. That's how

these happen. That's not how the real world works. It is very rare that this

world works. It is very rare that this happens. And also, you'll see like this

happens. And also, you'll see like this is a very small subset. Swift UI is less than a tenth the popularity of React Native right now. I I almost feel insane

that this video is about pretending React Native is more popular than it is when you are picking an arbitrary category to showcase how Swift UI is more popular than it is. Swift UI is not

that popular at all. Speaking of

numbers, I I take a couple issues with this next section, too. There's this

report from Statista that shows mobile app framework adoption, but it only considers cross-platform frameworks and not native ones. We could also look at the Stack Overflow 2024 developer

survey, which includes this beautiful chart showing overlapping developer interest for React Native and Rabbit MQ for some reason. Or instead of looking at all of these random surveys, we could

look at the actual thing that matters which is how much success are React Native apps finding and how many jobs would you have available to you as a React Native developer. I already showed the numbers, but I'll show them once

more as a reminder. Roughly 25% of the top 100 apps in any given category in the app store are using React Native.

And there are 10 times the number of jobs available for React Native devs than there are for devs using Swift UI and Jetack. So sure, the Stack Overflow

and Jetack. So sure, the Stack Overflow survey says React Native isn't that popular. The Stack Overflow survey is

popular. The Stack Overflow survey is for a bunch of unemployed students. It's

not relevant. It just isn't. We should

be looking at where the money is going if we want to know the success of the tools and technologies. And the reason there is so much money going into React Native is because companies are pulling a lot of money out of React Native because it's going well for them. We're

not all just investing in this things.

We think it's funny and silly and we can trick people into using it. We're doing

it because it's been helping us with our businesses. My background was originally

businesses. My background was originally mobile dev. I used to contribute to like

mobile dev. I used to contribute to like crazy Android ROM hacks when I was getting started. I did that because it

getting started. I did that because it was easier to contribute to Android than it was to build an app at the time.

Regardless of that, I was deep in the mobile world for a long time and I was blown away when I saw how far React Native had come in like the 2021 2022

era that it's hard for me to really care anymore like about native technologies.

They're just it's cool when new features come in, but I'm more excited to see them adopted and ready for React Native than I am to just see them thrown in.

And React Native is winning because it's benefiting all of us. There is one other much worse way to measure the success of a tool in the JS world though. But wait

React Native downloads on npm are skyrocketing right now. Doesn't this

mean React Native is taking over the world? Well, if you look a little

world? Well, if you look a little closer, you'll see that the curve has an inflection point around January 2022.

soon after the announcement of Expo application services. There's a lot to

application services. There's a lot to say here, but uh one thing that we can get out of the EAS versus Expo numbers we see Expo's peak is at like 140K a

week versus React Natives, which is around 3 million a week. So, if your accusation is that these numbers are artificially boosted because of EAS, why is there a three-digit difference

between the numbers? What are you saying? You can't plot the chart and

saying? You can't plot the chart and say, "Look, these graphs change the same time. Therefore, this is a number being

time. Therefore, this is a number being faked by Expo when you show there is a three-digit difference between the two numbers. On top of that, they cash the

numbers. On top of that, they cash the install, so they're not hitting npm half the time." Anyways, Evan's in here. He

the time." Anyways, Evan's in here. He

built a ton of this. They mostly cash wherever possible. So if EAS in the

wherever possible. So if EAS in the autob building tools that Expo made are the reason that we spiked from a million downloads a week to three million a week, why is their CLI only spiking to

100K a week? What if, crazy thought React Native is getting more popular because people are realizing it's good and tools like EAS are coming out because more and more people want to ship with React Native. What if all of

these things are correlated because of the external reality that React Native is benefiting a lot of us in our businesses? Crazy, absurd, I know, but

businesses? Crazy, absurd, I know, but it's very real. The other big gap between these two charts, I'm not seeing the correlation on these charts. I'm sorry, but like if

the the point you're trying to make is that this blue line is causing this red line to triple, I don't know what the heck you're talking about there. There's

one other thing I want to show here. See

the like slight spike at the start of 2025? Let's compare that to EAS's spike.

2025? Let's compare that to EAS's spike.

Wait, what? EAS doubled almost in the past three months. There's a reason for that, too. A lot of these AI app builder

that, too. A lot of these AI app builder tools are picking React Native and Expo.

And despite the fact that this is enough to double Expo's numbers, it's barely a blip in React Natives. It's like a 15 to 20% bump. So, React Native is getting

20% bump. So, React Native is getting more popular because it's way better for these AI tools to build with because unlike all the native tools that we're talking about and shilling here like Swift UI and Jetack Compose, it's

actually open source and all of the tooling around it is open source too.

Even if a lot of Android is open source a lot isn't. In the current state of like Android Studio, it's rough. And Apple's tools are entirely closed source. Yes, Swift

itself is open source. Swift UI not at all. The UI layer for Swift is the thing

all. The UI layer for Swift is the thing that's most important when you're building with it. Good luck finding the things you need to train your AI to do it well. It's one of the many things

it well. It's one of the many things Apple is doing terribly with with AI right now. And I'm saying this as an

right now. And I'm saying this as an Apple fanboy. The AI assisted dev

Apple fanboy. The AI assisted dev experience for Apple is slightly worse than Apple's existing dev experience.

Both of those are really bad. It's one

of the other reasons people are moving to React Native. Even Apple fanboys like myself, because this ecosystem has significantly better tools for developing good applications than Apple does. Can Apple's theoretically be

does. Can Apple's theoretically be slightly better when you slug through all the crap to get there? Perhaps. The

React Native apps have gotten incredibly good, too. And there's a reason why

good, too. And there's a reason why we're going to be betting on it for T3 Chat, cuz it's good. It benefits us. I'm

not betting on it because I think it's funny to do or cuz I'm trying to sell you guys some crap. I am. I'm trying to sell you guys T3 Chat. Yeah. And if this was just me and others who are being paid by Infinite Red, I would understand

the biases and frustrations there. But

let's look at the top expo apps right now. We got the shop app from Shopify

now. We got the shop app from Shopify Discord, Microsoft Authenticator Capital One, Chime, Rocket Money, Character AI, Blue Sky. Blue Sky

is also fully open source. If you want a huge open- source React Native app to look at, that's a good one. It even

showcas some of the problems that I have with React Native that I've talked about in other videos. There is so much stuff using React Native here. It's insane.

God, I I could I've hinted at it for so long. The depth of Sony's use of React

long. The depth of Sony's use of React Native is insane. Pretty much the entire UI for the PlayStation 5's operating system is in React Native. I wish I could say more. I probably will in the future, but they bet hard. And we

haven't even really talked about Microsoft yet. Sure, they're using it

Microsoft yet. Sure, they're using it for authenticator, but Microsoft's doing a lot more than that with React Native.

I mentioned that React Native's like official support is for iOS and Android.

Obviously Meta has their own build for Quest as well. React Native Windows here largely maintained by Kiara and crew.

Actually, is Kiara even that high up there? No, she's not. Good to know. But

there? No, she's not. Good to know. But

the React Native for Windows port is maintained by Microsoft very closely with Meta. But React Native for Windows

with Meta. But React Native for Windows is by Microsoft themselves. It's not

Meta or some other company trying to trick people into using React Native to charge more for consulting. Microsoft is

doing it because they recognize the quality of their developer tools is not high enough. And React Native provides a

high enough. And React Native provides a better experience for UI focused developers. They are now using React

developers. They are now using React Native for Windows in a ton of different things including really important stuff like the start menu or the Excel app.

I'm not saying the whole Excel app is in React Native, but there's a bunch of stuff in it that is. And what's even funnier, people already caught on in chat. React Native Mac OS also by

chat. React Native Mac OS also by Microsoft because they want to be able to write code with this quality developer experience and ship it to Mac and Windows desktop platforms at the

same time. So they built React Native

same time. So they built React Native Mac OS to do that and it's a fork because it's based on the iOS version of React Native. There are no major

React Native. There are no major versions of React Native but it'll probably be up to date again pretty soon. I will say the React Native

soon. I will say the React Native Windows and Mac versions tend to lag behind a little bit because they are huge complex projects and also because Microsoft's interest isn't necessarily being on the latest and greatest

version. It's building an actual

version. It's building an actual platform that their developers can rely on to build UIs in some of the most important things that Microsoft sells.

And I will once again ask, why would they use React Native for important things like the Start menu and Excel some of their most important key surfaces, if it wasn't benefiting them?

Are we just saying all of these companies are dumb? I mean, they are here and there, but are they all falling for the same trap somehow magically? Are

all of the companies hiring for React Native falling for the same misleading thing? Are they all listening to YouTube

thing? Are they all listening to YouTube ads and being tricked into thinking React Native is good when it's not? or

do they have agency and they're making the decision because it benefits them.

Crazy, crazy, I know, but let's think this one through a little bit more seriously here, guys. It's also

particularly funny that Copilot was an example of a native app using Jetack Compose in Swift UI because they're using Copilot on desktop in React Native almost entirely. And again from Kira at

almost entirely. And again from Kira at Microsoft here, sorry for mispronouncing her name. I need to be better about

her name. I need to be better about this. Regative isn't just chosen for its

this. Regative isn't just chosen for its crossplatform features, which obviously is kind of like the killer feature, but it's increasingly being chosen for its developer experience. That's a big deal.

developer experience. That's a big deal.

And on Microsoft's official React Native for Windows showcase, we have the Xbox app. Also, the Microsoft Store on Xbox.

app. Also, the Microsoft Store on Xbox.

So, if you're on the Xbox, you're going through the store, React Native. And as

someone who's bought a lot of games on different consoles, Xboxes is the least store. The Switch store is

store. The Switch store is unacceptably bad. I don't know how it is

unacceptably bad. I don't know how it is that bad. The PlayStation one kind of

that bad. The PlayStation one kind of sucks too, but it's also React Native.

So, I'm not going to say it's React Native's fault there. Yeah. Oh, one more real fun example. Kick moved off of X1 React Native claiming React Native was why their app was slow. Then they moved right back to it because it benefited

them so much. Yeah. React Native. You

can make a bad app with React Native.

You can do it really quickly, too. You

can also make a good app with React Native. It's slower than making a bad

Native. It's slower than making a bad one, but you can make really good apps with React Native, and you can do it faster than you can with native technologies if you already know React especially. Okay, I have one last thing

especially. Okay, I have one last thing I have to say about the Expo thing. I'll

just let Tastemakaker statement go first. And all of the content and

first. And all of the content and influencer marketing the Expo does on YouTube telling you that React Native is the best way to build mobile apps.

Am I not allowed to have friends?

Seriously though, I have never received a scent from Expo. I have been paying them monthly for 5 years now. They have

never paid me a scent. They are in my content a lot because I like them.

They're building things that I'm excited as hell about. My YouTube channel's only three years old. I've been working with Expo and hyped on what they're building for twice as long as I have been doing this content stuff myself. I'm not

talking about them because they're paying me or their marketing. And I

sincerely doubt they're paying somebody whose YouTube channel is named Evening Kid to do influencer marketing. And the

reason they were on DevTools FM is because Evan has so much really interesting stuff to talk about. It's

also it's a podcast. And notice that he cut off the view counts on all of these.

1.7K views. I'm sure that is really pushing React Native and making it way bigger than it would be otherwise. Like

what? I I just I I hate this particular appeal. It's popular because they are

appeal. It's popular because they are buying the popularity. You cannot buy popularity. Oh yeah, the last one here

popularity. Oh yeah, the last one here is a conference. He spoke at the conference because he goes to conferences and they invite him to speak because he has interesting things to talk about. Some of my favorite talks

talk about. Some of my favorite talks are Evan just geeking out about the thing he's working on. Yeah, Evan here.

Uh Theo dunking on my content now. Yeah

cuz you're not a content creator, Evan.

You're a Lego guy that happens to be good at web dev and mobile dev for some reason. Mostly mobile. Your web code

reason. Mostly mobile. Your web code sucks. But uh yeah, I dunk on you cuz

sucks. But uh yeah, I dunk on you cuz you're a friend of mine and I love giving you This is my crew. And

that's why I'm so upset here is like sure, call me biased all you want. I'm

defending my friends. I made these friends because they're building things I was excited about and I reached out and they wanted to talk about it. And

sure, I have a lot of subscribers on YouTube now, but the reason people came to my channel is they found value in the things I was talking about and the conversations I was having. And I've

been fighting all of this misin as long as I can remember. It all

started way back when when I was working at Twitch and this blog post investigating React Native was published. And what's really funny is

published. And what's really funny is people still cite this one against me as proof that React Native isn't good because a blog post from 8 years ago where actually by the time this video is

published, this will be at the 8year mark for when it came out. This blog

post was when React Native was nowhere near as good as it is today. And it's

still wrong. In 2021, I rebuilt the Twitch app from scratch in React Native as a hackathon project. And Alec here the author of this article, was so impressed with that and his own

explorations that he tried to publish a redo of this article saying that React Native is actually now ready for Twitch and they wouldn't let him. He also was so frustrated with the mobile team that

he moved to the web teams because he was getting so React build. So yeah, he ended up quitting right around the same time I did. The author of this article is a huge fan of React Native now. So

yeah, I've been fighting this fight for as long as I can remember. And do you know how annoying it is having people cite an article that was written by a friend of yours saying, "Look, see your company doesn't even think React Native is ready." I'm like "Yeah, I'm friends

is ready." I'm like "Yeah, I'm friends with the guy who wrote it. He says that the article is wrong now." And it was half wrong when he wrote it. You're the

one who's wrong here. And Twitch is too lazy to unpublish it or even put anything on it cuz the mobile team at Twitch does not want React Native to happen. And now they're forcing the web

happen. And now they're forcing the web teams to embed crappy web app experiences inside of the native app because they refuse to let React Native near their codebase. This is the problem. And when you spread misinfo the

problem. And when you spread misinfo the way this video does, despite the fact the video is bringing up really important things that we should talk about, this misinformation has weaved its way through it such that the

conversation becomes inherently toxic and no longer about reality. Reality is

React Native helps a lot of businesses.

Reality is there's a lot of companies hiring for React Native devs. Reality is there's all of these React Native consultancies because more and more people want to adopt React Native as an ecosystem and a technical solution to the problems that they are having.

Reality is that React Native is benefiting a lot of people and companies and you have to go to some crazy leaps in order to pretend it's not. So yeah

sorry for my frustrations. I just I'm heartbroken that me talking about the people I like working with and the cool things they are doing is seen as some scop marketing ploy paying me off to

talk about React Native because they want to make money. How does Facebook make money if React Native gets more popular? They don't. Something I do

popular? They don't. Something I do actually help with here and there is forming the pitch from the React Native team to the higherups so they can continue getting the funding they need to build the framework. Because believe

it or not, the biggest React Native haters work at Facebook and Meta. There

are so many people there that want React Native to die, that are convinced it's a scourge, that are constantly fighting the team internally before any of this even goes public. Facebook and Meta are investing in React Native because the React Native team has made a compelling

pitch for the technology and they've seen a surprising amount of success with the things adopting React Native. It's

also worth noting the React Native team at Meta is like multiplicatively larger like at least 5x larger than the core React team at Facebook. React web and React Native are massively different at

meta because React Native is such an important technology for them now. And

it's also an incredibly difficult thing to build. Building a layer that lets you

to build. Building a layer that lets you write code once and compile it to such different platforms requires industryleading experts in both iOS and Android code and they've hired a ton of

them to build it. I wish we could spend more time admiring the technical achievement that is React Native because it's so cool and I wish more mobile devs could just look at how cool it was

instead of being annoyed because they're scared of JavaScript. I want to end on one last piece of agreement here because Tastemaker does have good points for this, especially the like weird fodder

blog posts bits. So, next time you see one of these clickbait SEO articles about which mobile app framework to choose, at least take it with a grain of

salt. Yes, take it with a ton of grains

salt. Yes, take it with a ton of grains of salt. These articles, especially now

of salt. These articles, especially now in a world where half of them are freaking AI generated, if you don't know the person who wrote it and you can't find other relevant work of theirs, the author matters as much as the content

nowadays. So, check who they are, what

nowadays. So, check who they are, what they have done, how are they relevant to you. And I'll self-own a bit here. I

you. And I'll self-own a bit here. I

haven't published any particularly prominent mobile apps. I've built a handful of them, especially internal tool stuff, but I don't have good showcases of my work on mobile. You

should be more skeptical of me because of that. When I talk about web

of that. When I talk about web especially web performance stuff, you better shut your mouth up when I'm talking about it because I know what I'm doing. And there's plenty of evidence

doing. And there's plenty of evidence all over the web of me being an industryleading expert in web performance application stuff. Go try T3 chat if you don't believe me. There's a

reason it's so much faster and it's not cuz it's lower in features or I hit some magic button. It's cuz I care a lot

magic button. It's cuz I care a lot about performance on the web. I also

care a lot about mobile, but I don't have enough evidence. So, I understand if you want to doubt me there, but you should take a look at the industry experts and what they have to say about this stuff because there are so many incredibly talented people in the mobile

space building absurdly complex and intricate applications and more and more of them are coming around the power of React Native and what it enables for their teams. Thank you, Tastemaker, for making this. I know I was harsh

making this. I know I was harsh throughout, but the point still stands.

There are some real problems, especially around these like AI generated crap articles floating around the web. Half

the time I get a dev article I find searching, it's absolute garbage, but that doesn't mean we can respond with similarly misleading things. I

understand the frustration. I am with you there. the fact that when you try to

you there. the fact that when you try to figure out how to pick a framework, you get a crappy article. Somebody spit out a chat GPT, it's unacceptable and it's going to lead to new devs making bad decisions. There are two important

decisions. There are two important things to understand here, though. One

is that these articles suck no matter what, and we should be steering people away from these sources. And the other is that beginners are going to screw up anyways. We need to let people make the

anyways. We need to let people make the wrong decision and learn from it. One of

the reasons I stopped talking about Flutter is I like to think it's apparent once you've built a Flutter app especially on iOS, that it's a crap framework for building crap applications. And if you can't tell, I

applications. And if you can't tell, I don't know if you can ever build a great app. We need to let the kids make the

app. We need to let the kids make the wrong decisions. Ideally, they're not

wrong decisions. Ideally, they're not doing it because a crappy article told them to. They're doing it because they

them to. They're doing it because they thought the thing would solve a real problem for them. But it's just the reality of learning how to code. You

have to make bad decisions in order to then go make good ones. If you

accidentally make the right decision when you start, you're worse off than if you made the wrong one because now you don't know why it's right or how to learn from it. So, as hard as it is, and this is something I struggled with a lot

myself, we need to let the kids pick wrong. Let them go build a Twitter clone

wrong. Let them go build a Twitter clone with HTMX. Let them go try to build a

with HTMX. Let them go try to build a super complex video encoding app with PHP. Let them try and build a fancy

PHP. Let them try and build a fancy YouTube clone using Flutter. They need

to learn the errors in their ways. And

if you are this confident that React Native is a terrible technology that is going down, not up, let the market do its thing. It's going to. And rather

its thing. It's going to. And rather

than confidently stating things that are wrong, try to talk to the people building it. You might be surprised

building it. You might be surprised especially now that you put out a video that's viral, you'll be amazed at who will respond if you hit them up asking questions. If you see things on the

questions. If you see things on the React Native showcase that are confusing to you, post about it. Ask, reach out.

You'll be amazed who will respond. I

guarantee if you had sent a DM to someone like Jamon or Evan Bacon about your thoughts on all of this, you would have gotten the same response I did, a super fancy breakdown of what's going on

in the space and how people are actually using these things. If you're like "Hey, I unbundled the Amazon app.

Where's the React Native?" You could have been linked to the talk and learned where the React Native is. But that's

the biggest issue I had with the video is it's it started on a focus of a real problem which is garbage content being shared as a way of making decisions about what framework to use. And it then

slowly becomes one of those garbage sources itself. And it breaks my heart

sources itself. And it breaks my heart because I see so much potential here.

Tastemaker made an awesome video and if I didn't have one of the best editors in the world, I would legitimately be hitting him up to help me with editing.

He can make compelling content. I would

encourage him to take the opportunity now that he has a platform to reach out to others in the space when you have questions about these things rather than

making bad assumptions and only going one layer deeper than the surface. There

is so much depth to all these things. I

often joke that the React Native community is 10 times deeper than the React community despite being a hundth the size. But it's true. The amount of

the size. But it's true. The amount of thought and care these devs put into these things is hard to put into words.

And I know this all in contrast seems like marketing fluff and I don't care.

This is how I really feel about it. I am

so blown away with the amount of just focus and effort going on in the React Native community. Some of the smartest

Native community. Some of the smartest and most thoughtful people I know I met through this ecosystem. And I would highly encourage you Tastemaker to take the opportunity to talk to these devs. I would almost feel bad if you didn't get

to because there are some awesome people that you could meet and befriend to boost your career and do such cool things with. And maybe, just maybe

things with. And maybe, just maybe you'll end up seeing the magic in React Native that we all see too. And it's

totally fine if you don't. It's really

nice to have friends that disagree with your stances on things. One of my closest dev friends is a huge Flutter fanboy, but he knows how to talk crap on the thing and point out its flaws. And I

love having him around because we can compare and contrast notes. You got to have your crew of people who understand the thing you don't like well enough to have the conversation. And this video

feels like it could only happen in isolation from anyone who understood React Native. And again, to be very

React Native. And again, to be very clear, this isn't some fundamental failure of Tastemaker. This is expected as a person who had under 300 subs and three YouTube videos at the time. But

now you have a platform. Now you have access to all of these awesome people.

Take advantage of it. is the coolest part about having this platform is the people you can meet and the things you can learn from them. You no longer have an excuse to publish something underressearched and unfactual like

this. It is a totally acceptable thing

this. It is a totally acceptable thing that you made these mistakes, but now it's time to make corrections and do the best you possibly can to correctly report on the things that you cover as

part of your platform. And if you ever want any help on this, hit me up. My DMs

are open. Emails inside of my description on YouTube. You can get a hold of me. There's a lot of ways to do it. I would love to help out however I

it. I would love to help out however I can. I'm genuinely impressed with the

can. I'm genuinely impressed with the quality of content you create and with a little bit of change to how you do research and comms with other people in the space. You could easily be one of

the space. You could easily be one of the biggest people on this platform. So

thank you Tastemaker for bringing this topic up again and giving me an excuse to talk about one of my favorite things I don't get to enough anymore nowadays.

Let me know what you guys think about this. Is React Native overrated

this. Is React Native overrated underrated, too popular, not popular enough, or am I just insane? Let me know in the comments. Until next time, peace nerds.