Here is a simple truth: Simplicity is dead, and Vercel killed it.

I remember when you could just write an index.html file. I remember when PHP was considered “messy” but literally ran everywhere. Now? Now we have the App Router.

The “Server Component” Lie

“It’s server-side rendered!” they say. “It’s faster!” they say. Do you know what else is server-side rendered? HTML.

We reinvented PHP, wrapped it in a 2MB JavaScript bundle, and called it “modern”. I spent 4 hours yesterday debugging a hydration error because I dared to use a <div> inside a <p> tag.

Hydration failed because the initial UI does not match what was rendered on the server.

I DO NOT CARE. Just render the text! Why does my blog need to “hydrate”? It’s TEXT. It’s literally static text. Why is there a JSON payload embedded in the footer that duplicates my entire data structure?

The Image Component

Don’t get me started on <Image />. “It optimizes your images!” No, it makes my local development a nightmare of width and height requirements and then charges me for optimization limits. Just let me use an <img> tag. Browsers have loading="lazy" now. We don’t need you, Next.js.

Conclusion

I’m using Astro now. It ships zero JavaScript by default. It respects me. It doesn’t try to be a simplified operating system running in a browser tab.

Refuse the hydration. return to HTML.