I remember making super slow programs in BASIC and then learning assembler language with my friends to make faster programs. A shame that children nowadays won't have that opportunity.
Today's BASIC is JavaScript. It provides relatively easy access to many things a computer can do — like BASIC did. However, the JS execution engines are highly optimized, and even my phone is a supercomputer compared to the machines that ran the BASIC of yore. It stands to reason that it will take the average newbie much longer to question whether JS is the right language.