> As a semantic aside, I wince when people call React a framework. If we think of an SPA in terms of an MVC framework, it primarily handles the V. So really it’s a view library since developers can use whatever M and C they want.

React isn't a library, it's a framework. A narrowly focused framework perhaps, but a framework nonetheless: it has to control the event loop and you have to follow its special rules (hooks), you can't just call into it like vanilla code.