The other side of the answer for HTMLite (other specs we write might differ here) is that it explicitly aims to be a more legible alternative the WHATWG spec which better describes the HTML most web developers (like yourself) are writing and most browser engines are implementing. Except ofcourse for the popular few sites and browsers.

Which could be useful documentation today for those who care about e.g. Lynx users. Certainly allowing browsers to specialize to the commandline, voice, etc is a big motivator for me!

This is just my quick 2 cents based on your question, so far from a definitive answer and certainly don't consider it one.

So while you definitely have a point there are many webapps which have complicated functionality, let's face it there are also substantial portions of the modern web which really only need something like Weblite to perform their primary task: basically all news sites, any form of articles, recipes, non/partially-interactive tutorials etc.

In order to perform their primary function, they don't really need js at all. So then we get to the darker side of it, almost all of them use enormous amounts of js, not to perform their primary purpose but to basically snoop on their users. There's a largish chunk of the modern web which doesn't need js for anything other than doing nasty things!

My personal view (not connected to the project) is that most of the functionality that JS provides that is in the interest of the user could be provided in a declarative manner (dynamic fetching / displaying of data, menus, tabs, etc) without the need for a scripting engine. Something akin to Phoenix' Liveview or Laravel Livewire (those can do a lot of things without writing any custom javascript). If we could keep at least parts of those but drop all the malfeatures that JS is used for (scams, tracking, fingerprinting, pop-overs, modifying existing UI behaviour like scrollsbars, cryptominers, autoplaying music/videos, etc.) I think we could have majority of the good parts and minority of the bad. I'll keep my eyes on the project :)

Great observations. Especially the first one..

I think those browsers will be for a niche audience mostly, similar to how people are still using e.g. Lynx. They may offer some fallback to a 'Reader-mode'-alike representation of richer sites, such as Firefox offers. Depending on how successful the initiative will be more ways will be shaped for new browser implementations to enter the market over time. With new basic engines, who knows, full-blown browser may evolve from that in the long run.

As for the second point. You may get an easier development experience, while the site you develop is accessible to the broadest possible audience. Size and bandwidth are getting to be more important from an energy usage perspective.

I don't have a codeberg account but how about OpWeb. Stands for Open Web but could also use the gaming term to get Overpowered Web. The Document Web and DocWeb are also cool.