I don't think this is _always_ true. With SSR you only render the HTML server-side on the first page load. Any interaction after that is just the JSON payload being retrieved and rendered by a JS framework, which is faster than a complete rerender.
Your comparison is valid for first page loads. But usually people visit multiple pages on a website. And then SSR usually wins, though I agree the added complexity is usually not worth it for 100% static websites.
Usually people visit multiple pages? I think this is a 90-10 situation. 90% of the sites I visit, I reach a web page through another website, either a aggregator or a search engine, and I almost never navigate that website. Those could be purely static for all I care.
The remaining 10%, where I stay 90% of the time, could benefit from a mostly static interface with a tiny amount of server-side rendering.
I don't think this is _always_ true. With SSR you only render the HTML server-side on the first page load. Any interaction after that is just the JSON payload being retrieved and rendered by a JS framework, which is faster than a complete rerender.
Your comparison is valid for first page loads. But usually people visit multiple pages on a website. And then SSR usually wins, though I agree the added complexity is usually not worth it for 100% static websites.