Your main question seems to be the least relevant. You're speaking to the "2%" because many of them hang out here and all you have now is reasons that they turn

Your main question seems to be the least relevant. You're speaking to the "2%" because many of them hang out here and all you have now is reasons that they turn off JS. I think what you really want to know is 1) What kinds of sites can get away with failing completely when js is disabled? 2) Are there any good estimates on the number of people who regularly browse with JS disabled? (Because I'm not sure if your 2% estimate is correct.) As for the primary question, personally I think that application-sites like GMail, Google Docs, etc can get away with posting a polite message that "this site requires Javascript". However, any site where text content is the main attraction should show the content without Javascript being required (so, News, Blogs, etc). However, if you're working for people who were doing web development in the 90's, who insist that every single feature of every single page should work without Javascript...you should run. Those people are dinosaurs and they're living in the past.