[jerrycruncher]

Sure. The app I'd been working on had previously been using the original 'render prop' style of accessing context in functional components and using the this.contextType accessor for class-based components. Both approaches had their downsides:

- 'render props' are fairly awkward to write, and add a lot of noise to a component that's working with data from multiple contexts.

- this.contextType can only give a component access to one context. This is a pretty big problem.

With Hooks, useContext lets you reference and destructure contexts in a really elegant way. Say you want to show a user's name if they're logged in, with the render prop approach it's something like:

  <AuthContext.Consumer>
    {({ isLoggedIn } => {
      return (<div> {isLoggedIn && <span>i'm logged in</span>} </div>)
    })}
  </AuthContext.Consumer>

with useContext, you can do

  const { isLoggedIn } = useContext(AuthContext);

and then use

  {isLoggedIn && ...} 

to condtionally render anywhere in the body of your component without all the Context.Consumer business.

[mikewhy]

Was there ever any clarification on why the React team went with a single `contextType`, and not something like:

    class MyComponent extends Component {
      static contextTypes = {
        auth: AuthContext,
      }
    }