But...your code examples are not doing the same thing though. The React example just does a `GET /clicked` request and discards the response. The htmx example does a GET request and swaps the response into place, replacing the button. This is analogous to an `<a>` or `<form>` tag that makes a request, gets the response, and then replaces (ie swaps) the page.
Try making your React example do what the htmx one does. That's when you'll see the complexity start to creep in.
But how often do you actually need that when writing a reactive app? In most cases I have worked with you want the button to persist and load some external data that updates a reactive state.
Sure, try doing whatever equivalent makes sense in React. Then try comparing the complexity of the two approaches. The point is to compare apples to apples as much as possible.
Try making your React example do what the htmx one does. That's when you'll see the complexity start to creep in.