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New syntax can obsolete older browsers, but it doesn't necessarily have to in the age of Babel and Typescript.

Babel can already translate ES2018 async iterators and rest/spread into ES5 code that works pretty much everywhere.

If you are using babel there is no need for the new browsers to support the new syntax at all.

Sure there are. For example, your bundle size shrinks when targeting newer browsers because more features exist, fewer need to be polyfilled.

Then you must prepare two bundles, one for new browsers and one for old. I suppose that's possible, but doesn't seem worth it.

You can use <script type=module> to target newer browsers. It’s definitely worth having two bundles because the ES6 and newer is much smaller. And one day, you stop shipping the old ES5 bundle.

It is worth it most of the time.

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