[uniqueuid]

I'll bite - this is an incomplete list:

- Save web pages to disk (in an usable form, i.e. usable by scripts etc., offline)

- curl + script to handle content - now you need puppeteer etc.

- Easy automation of web pages (same as above) - can't just do POST (yes some pages have APIs. Most are different and require effort)

- Custom CSS that works universally

- Do powerful stuff with proxies (i.e. rewrite requests, responses)

- Link to individual documents or even anchors by default

- Pages are the same for everyone, you can send people a link and expect they see it, and see it the way you do

... the list goes on, but these cover some of the most important points.

[endisneigh]

You can still do all of these things. JavaScript isn’t the problem.

Your issue is more that there’s no longer any standardization of the web and the surface area to which sites are designed have increased drastically.

One could still make a site today that can do everything you’re describing

[uniqueuid]

I invite you to try and do any of these things and discover how hard, prohibitively hard they are.

[endisneigh]

It’s not - a plain text site example, does all of these automatically

[uniqueuid]

Sorry, you're right of course. But anything like a SPA where javascript populates and/or changes the DOM - that's not accessible to a plain client without rendering engine.

[endisneigh]

Sure, but the issue isn’t JavaScript, the issue is that people are building their websites as web apps and when it isn’t necessary.

Java applets and flash had the same issues.