Do You Really Need WebSockets?

Every time a feature had the word "real-time" in it, my brain would jump straight to WebSockets. It felt like the right, serious, production-grade choice. Turns out, it's often overkill. And understanding why has changed how I think about building things. The Question Nobody Asks First Before anything else, ask this: Does the client need to send data back to the server through this connection? That's it. That's the question. WebSockets give you a two-way channel, the server can talk to the clien