I find it really fortunate. SPAs can use much much less data for the same content, which is a big plus when you're on a data-limited connection, as most users in the developing world are. If you spend much time on a site they also demand less CPU and thus less battery life (vdom updates are less intense than new page renders), which helps when you're on a mobile connection, and they feel much more responsive when you're on a high-latency connection, which you are again if you're in the developing world or on mobile. Server-side rendering feels like getting a faster and lighter initial load in exchange for heavier, slower, more battery-draining usage overall.
> Server-side rendering feels like getting a faster and lighter initial load in exchange for heavier, slower, more battery-draining usage overall.
If and only if you do the SPA right. Compare Twitter (slow to load, slow to interact with, battery-draining, issues with maintaining scroll position, and all of these get worse the farther you scroll down) to the SPA version of https://mobile.twitter.com/ (fast to load and interact with) to the static version of Mobile Twitter (even faster, no infinite scroll, works on Dillo).
