What would handle the click on the client browser? How would you handle all the user events in the client browser? clicks, mouse overs, selections, etc.
The Javascript platform is used to capture user behavior in the most efficient manner. This is the fundamental basis for all the online business processes and resulting business value.
Before JS browsers handled clicks without any 3rd party code. They were much more predictable and easier to reason about as a user.
Those clicks usually translated to HTTP calls.
What is so fundamental about business processes that they can't do an extra page render and HTTP call? (I imagine there may be some, I just can't see how they are so fundamental and on the order of billions.)
Funny enough I hear Gmail's plain HTML version is preferable for some here on HN.
Regardless I don't see how JS is fundamental to any of those services, not even Maps. Instead I suspect HTML would have become more feature rich sooner than HTML5.
I also don't believe JS itself contributes significantly to the trillions of dollars involved in online business.
Granted. And PHP runs like 30% of public websites. I doubt it's the JS driving most of the value though. I suspect much of their success was/is still possible without requiring trusting novel, 3rd party code, to be run on demand.
Why introduce counterfactuals? Flash existed, it had a full JS-variant language. It was taking over restaurant and other sites due to the IE monopoly stagnating HTML/CSS/JS. We don't need to appeal to an imaginary Turing-incomplete no-JS world to argue that JS didn't contribute enough. Flash was clearly the answer! Right?
Even if you might be right, your combative style is very off-putting. You could choose not to reply at all, the comment wasn't directed at you and I personally would've liked to entertain the idea of a more server-side rendered present, but you're shutting down the discussion.
Anyway, my point is that none of the interactivity as delivered by JS / ActiveX / Flash are themselves reason for all the money in online business. Before graphical browsers there were probably billions in transactions happening on computer networks. And likely would have grown to similar highs without the ability to run untrusted, 3rd party code on demand.
The Javascript platform is used to capture user behavior in the most efficient manner. This is the fundamental basis for all the online business processes and resulting business value.