Don't you need javascript to make most webpages useful?

Good sir, no.

The web has existed for long before javascript was around.

The web was useful for long before javascript was around.

I literally hate javascript -- not the language itself but the way it is used. It has enabled some pretty cool things, yes. But javascript is not required to make useful webpages.

I think you misunderstood him. Yes, it’s possible to CREATE a useful webpage without JavaScript, but many EXISTING webpages rely on JavaScript to be functional.

If Amazon.com can work with JavaScript disabled, any site could be rewritten to do without. But I think to even get to the content on a lot of SPAs this would need to be running a headless browser to render the page, before extracting the static content unfortunately

No - an experiment: try disabling javascript in your browser settings, and then whenever you see a webpage that isn't working, enable javascript for that domain. You'd be surprised how fast 90% of the web feels with JS disabled.