It was faster. A page with JavaScript loaded instantly, a page with Java locked up the whole browser for around a minute while the JVM started. (That was probab

It was faster. A page with JavaScript loaded instantly, a page with Java locked up the whole browser for around a minute while the JVM started. (That was probably also the start of the "Java is slow" meme: anyone who had ever visited a page with a Java applet immediately learned to associate "Java" with "slow".)