elm-sortable-table VS useEffectReducer

That's true for complex apps but if your app is complex having effects everywhere doesn't make it easier to understand, in my experience. If having one big reducer is scary you can always split the reducer into multiple functions. If the app has separate "modules" each one of them can have their own reducer and effects. Using recoil you can decide wether these separate modules have each one their own state/atom or they all link to one big app state atom using selectors. It's a one line change to switch between the two and that's why I quite like recoil. If you squint, it looks a bit like how Elm creates reusable components, each one with their Model View Update, e.g. https://github.com/evancz/elm-sortable-table/tree/1.0.1

So it's like you say: it's a pattern that ensures a uniform style across the app. There's also the other end of the spectrum with frameworks like Relay and Fulcro that have their place and optimise all the data fetching, but I believe this pattern sits comfortably in the middle and scales a lot and at the same time it's not overkill for smaller apps. Now, you can do all that without adding effects to a queue. You can use useEffectReducer and perform them directly. I just prefer to be explicit about it and I think it has a lot of benefits. Definitely not The One True Way but something worth trying.