[yen223]

What? JS had loads of competition back then. VBScript, Flash, and Java applets, just to name a few ways to get interactivity on a browser.

[BiteCode_dev]

"sane" is the keyword here.

The alternative all depended on non technical users with slow connections to install the runtime.

Js code was guaranteed to work anywhere, and with no requirements, giving it practical monopoly.