Comment by KronisLV

I mean a radically different view is that the SERVER should just give you the data and process your requests, without necessarily caring much about what you are - a browser or some other automated system, or a desktop client, where each has vastly different preferences on how the content might get displayed or used.

With that approach, a clear API in the middle and a SPA on the client side makes a bunch of sense (as long as you don't make some chimera of hydration and pre-rendering and server-side components while pretending that it's still a SPA and it "just works" while your server is coupled to the client).

Of course, what you actually need depends on your circumstances and sometimes even preferences. For a bunch of internal or personal stuff, SSR can be really nice and simple!