- quickly inform on a topic without clicking through (lower latency)
- increase scanability (hence readability)
- decrease expensive whole page loads
- eliminate need to open many tabs
But most features on Wikipedia aren't like that, and would be really hurt if you had to a JS bundle or otherwise deal with the usual bloated webapp nonsense. Wikipedia primarily needs to load quickly and be semantic with preferably simple infrastructure to help their budget.
[^1]: See Gwern.net for an example of an easy pure JS hovercard - https://www.gwern.net/DNB-FAQ
I built the Wikipedia mobile site and there's a reason our hamburger menu, lazy loaded images and editor actually work without JS. We are for everyone regardless of internet connection speed, device value and internet stability.
That's a a hill at least I as an employee am prepared to die on.
Well; it turns out that I can: just made a donation.