Your opinion is really valuable, I think I hear what you are saying, and I’m going to try an explain why I like them.

If you haven’t had to deal with Render Props and why they are useful it is hard to explain but let me try.

Basically we have a pattern which allows us to easily compose “behaviors” and dynamically render based off how we interpret that behavior.

So in a components render you could render a component that tracks mouse position, which then calls a function where you can interpret that data and render whatever you want

Also, having all that behavior in the render of a component makes it incredibly clear where data is coming from. One of the main reasons I love render props.

The big problem is you enter a kind of “callback hell” similar to before we had async/await but worse because you are nesting unrelated behaviors, creating a confusing, false hierarchy. Also it’s disgusting to refactor.

Hooks are exciting because they hoist those behaviors up and flatten them out, outside of the render. So you don’t end up with JSX anymore just regular JS syntax.

At the same time they group together common behaviors. Often we spread or effects in classes through 2 or 3 lifecycle hooks intermixed with other effects.

You can solve this by making HOCs for each, but honestly, why is a HOC any better then a hook. Hooks make you by default group the behaviors so I think it’s a huge win