+1 Insightful. Requiring js for navigation is poor practice, especially if javascript is not needed for anything else. If you're only using it for animations/effects, requiring it can probably be avoided as well.

I think the difference is that before, javascript was more of an "addon" feature to web pages, where now we are now able to create things with javascript that just aren't possible with static HTML only, or are far more usable, responsive, etc.