[vallode]

JavaScript itself is not usually the problem (aside from certain fundemental issues). The computational gap between a developer on a M3 Macbook and a person on a used Dell from 2008 is already quite large, meaning what feels "snappy" and "responsive" to the former can feel "sluggish" and "annoying" to the latter.

The other factor between the two people can be network speed, many areas of the world have access to extremely limited bandwidth, very slow bandwidth, or a mixture of both!

Combining both the computational gap and the bandwidth gap means the issue of large JavaScript files blocking access to information on a global website is an accessibility concern. People who block JS are pushing for a more accessible web, either directly or indirectly.

I won't fight tooth and nail for all websites to _not_ have JavaScript, but I wish they would be progressively enhanced by that JS and still (at least in the core sense) usable without it.

[araes]

The websites are also written badly, and appear to optimize being written badly, because of their lack of goal alignment with users.

If you do a View Source on Reuters.com main landing page, it's script file is a single line that's 1,300,000 characters long. And every time you land on a page it tries to dump 1,300,000 characters of script on you (on top of the multi-MB videos it auto-loads) [and the pop-ups]

Most major corporate websites are that way. All written by algorithms with massive JS downloads and huge 64bit hash keys on every <div>. Tracking 64bit click numbers on each element and dumping all the calculation on the user.

[byyll]

You didn't ask for it but might find it useful: https://neuters.de

[araes]

Thanks. That's a cool site I had no idea existed. Frankly, most major news websites should offer this as a normal alternative. The news browsing experience would be so superior in many ways.

[unclenoriega]

Also, https://text.npr.org/

[byyll]

Serves a somewhat different target but yes. Other one is a proxy, this one is made by NPR.