[chinathrow]

Yes you can, actually. It's just more work to set it up properly but you absolutely can track user easily server side and you can serve ads without JS just fine.

[marcosdumay]

But you can't automatically relay those capabilities to untrusted 3rd parties. And that's where the money is.

[chinathrow]

Can you elaborate on there the money is exactly? Is it in selling data points about your visitors?

[marcosdumay]

It is in running 3rd party trackers on your site.