Coming from Ruby and Python, I also prefer class components to hooks. I had to deal with hooks enough in Drupal/PHP which is in the process of deprecating them in favor of Symfony classes.
Drupal hooks are a functional approach to design compared to the OOP approach of Symfony components. As in you use functions to modify/extend existing code instead of inheritance. That's the context of the discussion, not whether they are otherwise similar to React hooks. Anyway, I just tend to think more in terms of making things with classes/objects than with functions.