It was probably the right tradeoff to make between 2007-2017.
Doing anything in HTTP/1 would make you reload your whole page slowly. Then AJAX came along and allowed you to build things that were more interactive and responsive. Gmail was a game-changer.
Since then HTTP/2 came along, and I feel like the industry has blindly continued on the HTTP/1->AJAX trajectory, without stepping back and re-evaluating how much HTTP/2 (and later) can do for us.
Doing anything in HTTP/1 would make you reload your whole page slowly. Then AJAX came along and allowed you to build things that were more interactive and responsive. Gmail was a game-changer.
Since then HTTP/2 came along, and I feel like the industry has blindly continued on the HTTP/1->AJAX trajectory, without stepping back and re-evaluating how much HTTP/2 (and later) can do for us.