[dyoder]

One of the authors here: we've had some internal debate on this since that article was written, summarized here:

https://www.pandastrike.com/posts/20160331-facebook-react-pa...

Technically speaking, with respect to the whole argument that React is “just a library,” part of the problem is that it isn't perceived that way by many developers. The first auto-complete option (for me anyway) when I type “Web Components vs…” is React.

That said, the developer experience around Web Components is meh. Part of our frustration is that it would have been cool to see Facebook invest all the effort into Web Components-based technologies instead of going off on their own.