If you think the things made by jerks like me aren't part of the web or whatever, then fine. You stay on your version of the web and I'll stay on mine, and never the twain shall meet.
.....Until you actually need to do something useful.
I've seen a huge number of sites over the years stop working because they redesign to incorporate javascript; yet, when I visit them at work (with a javascript-enabled browser) their shiny new site doesn't actually have any new features.
Things that don't need javascript:
--Form verification (you should always be doing this on the server, and optionally in client-side javascript)
--<video> tag
--Popup site menus
--Web-based chat
--Webmail
--Message board comments (unless you locked yourself into Disqus)
--Nearly everything
Not having to render and reload an entire page every time something changes or a request is made is actually quite useful. Load balancing is one of the reasons js-based templates are so popular.
Also I believe there are aspects of cross-browser compatibility related to mobile design and responsive design which depend on javascript, though I may be mostly wrong.
Although, if you're just dealing with purely static html pages then I would agree AJAX is pointless. But not everything useful about javascript has to be useful just to the end user.
I remember web chatrooms working that way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, or maybe they had meta-tags that refreshed the page periodically.