At what point do the downsides of Javascript in the browser exceed the upsides? Have we already passed that point?

If you have any concept of security, the idea of downloading code from the Internet and immediately executing it, sight unseen, on your local machine, should give you the screaming heebie-jeebies. A lot of work has gone into sandboxing the browser processes so that Javascript cannot escape the browser itself, and later, the individual web page that it came from. However, this only dealt with the immediate and obvious vulnerability.

These days, the problem with Javascript is that it is used to track users all over the internet and serve them ads for the same products on every site. Quite why this requires 14 MB and 330 HTTP requests for 537 words is not entirely clear.

Actually, no, it is entirely clear: it is because the copro-grammers ("writers of feces") who produce this stuff have no respect for the users. The same utter disrespect underlies the recent bloat in iOS apps:

One Friday I turned off auto-update for apps and let the update queue build up for a week. The results shocked me.
After the first week I had 7.59GB of updates to install, spread across 67 apps – averaging 113MB per app.

Okay, so maybe you say who cares, you only update apps over wifi - but do you only browse on wifi? 14 MB for a few hundred words - that adds up fast.

And what else is that Javascript up to, beyond wasting bytes - both over the air, and in local storage?

How about snaflling data entered into a form, regardless of whether it has been submitted?

Using Javascript, those sites were transmitting information from people as soon as they typed or auto-filled it into an online form. That way, the company would have it even if those people immediately changed their minds and closed the page.

Yeah, that's not creepy or abusive at all. Shame on everyone involved: people who built the tech and people who adopted it. #adtech https://t.co/3R5wfpBJKJ

— Dominic 🇪🇺🇺🇦🏳️‍🌈 (@dwellington) June 22, 2017

My house, my rules. I look forward to iOS 11, and enabling every blocking feature I can.

I really want media sites to earn money so that they can continue to exist, but they cannot do it at my expense. A banner ad is fine, but 14 MB of Javascript to serve me the same banner ad everywhere - at my expense! - is beyond the pale.

Javascript delenda est.