Default Isn’t Design. Why familiar feels right but often…
October 15, 2025
Framework monoculture is a psychology problem as much as a tech problem. When one approach becomes “how things are done,” we unconsciously defend it even when standards would give us a healthier, more interoperable ecosystem. Psychologists call this reflex System Justification. Naming it helps us steer toward a standards-first future without turning the discussion into a framework war.
Source: Default Isn’t Design. Why familiar feels right but often… | by EisenbergEffect | Oct, 2025 | Medium
Frameworks, and above all React and its ecosystem, have become the most widely adopted approach to developing modern web applications.
But as Rob Eisenberg observes here there are significant risks when default approaches become so entrenched.
This is a detailed essay I recommend to anyone who thinks about front-end architecture. It will help question a lot of likely unexamined assumptions that we make about how we build web applications. Whatever implications it ultimately has, it will ensure that the choices we make are more informed and more conscious, and not simply the adoption of defaults.
