That's how all mainstream languages with a GC work, Java, C#, Ruby and Python, it's not particular to JS. And this why why languages like Clojure are nice to work with.
but it also isn't important
It's important if you really want to know why your examples work they way they do.
We're specifically talking about new programmers who haven't used any of those languages, and who are being reared in the JavaScript ecosystem where certain patterns reign that obscure this language behavior. That's what the original discussion was about.
> It's important if you really want to know why your examples work they way they do.
It's really not. Pass-by-reference and pass-a-pointer-by-value are subtly different concepts even in the C++ world, and using terminology that involves the word "pointer" opens up a whole other can of stuff that needs explaining.