I used to ship my app with a JavaScript first mindset. It felt fast on my own laptop, but users on weak phones, slow networks, or locked down corporate browsers kept running into sticky pages and half awake UI.

After I finally measured what I was shipping, I realized most of the client code was not adding value. It was just making hydration heavier, breaking accessibility, and hiding simple HTML solutions.

The post walks through the process I used to cut around 80 percent of the JS without going full “no JS”: listing real interactions in human language, leaning on native elements like details and dialog, using bundle analyzers, and deleting dependency creep. It also shows the small performance and accessibility checklist I use now.