Comment by freddex

Many of the newer standards added to the web platform boil down to supporting development of web apps, not only web pages. For example, the current iteration of the File System API in Chrome (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/File_System...) allows web apps to request permission to read and write to the user's file system. This is great for many tools.

Of course, this can be fairly controversial: More app-like capabilities lead to more complex standards and harder-to-secure browsers. There's also overengineering where people use web app techniques to develop web pages. You don't need (much) JS or even any of the new standards for HN, but for something like Google Docs or Figma, it's a different story.