Comment by derefr

...because a lot of us remember a web that was very useful already, without needing a realtime component? We did the realtime stuff over other protocols; the web was literally just a web of static hypertext documents.

In fact, even search engines were originally optional; various people and organizations used to simply maintain huge static directory service websites, simply listing out "everything else on the web" (or more often, just the parts the author thinks are cool.)