> I suppose that notion went away _because_ of JS and cookies.

I don't understand what you mean here.

> Looking at it from a business perspective

Which, I suppose, is the underlying problem. In my opinion, the drive to turn websites into revenue generators has had a corrosive effect on the entire web. I suppose that I just have to accept that increasing portions of the web are going to be hostile and to be avoided. It just saddens me, as so much -- perhaps a majority -- of the web is already more of a security risk than I can bear.

> Still, would be nice if most sites would at least render some plain HTML fallback with a bit of info, instead of a single line on a white page saying "this doesn't work".

More info is better than less info, but either way, the page still won't work.