[troupo]

> No it doesn't (in practice).

Yes , yes it does, in practice.

> React is typically used with something like React Router that takes over the whole sub-tree of paths. So links are handled by the single-page app itself,

"Taken over by Router", "handled by SPA itself" .... "React is to blame"

> Yes, you don't _have_ to do it this way.

Yes, you don't have to it this way, and this isn't React-specific. See Google's web.dev site built with web components