(03-02-2015, 05:42 PM)includebeer Wrote: Try using Facebook and Twitter without JavaScript. Good luck with that. If I'm building a full dynamic web application I can expect (and require) my users to have JavaScript enabled. The only user worth supporting no-JS functionality are the search engine bots and in most case you don't need to make all your content available to them.
Facebook directs you to use their mobile site "if you can't enable JavaScript". In some ways, their mobile site is preferable, as it strips a lot of the garbage out of your way and simplifies most of the interface elements. In other ways (appearance, features, etc.) it could be considered a fairly negative experience. While I did not spend a lot of time exploring it, there doesn't appear to be much you can't do on their mobile site with JavaScript disabled.
Twitter appears to let you do nearly everything except send a Tweet when JavaScript is disabled. If not for this limitation, it probably would be preferable to use Twitter's site without JavaScript, as they add a lot of clutter to the page via AJAX.
In both cases, the strength of the applications and services are not in their websites, but in their APIs, and, by extension, the apps available for mobile devices (and, to a lesser extent, other platforms) which make use of those APIs. 99% of my interaction with either platform is not through their websites, so it becomes significantly less likely that the choices made on their own website have a negative impact on their user base.
If I couldn't upload photos to Facebook from my phone, my account would probably only be useful to me as a method to access their developer documentation and log in to other sites and/or apps. Twitter was designed around mobile phones as a user interface, even to the point that it would seem archaic today (given the market for ever-larger smart-phones) if it didn't have an entrenched user base and the support of popular media.
If your users are never really going to visit your website anyway, then go ahead and force them to use JavaScript, Flash, and whatever else you feel is necessary for a "modern" website. Just make sure you've designed your API well enough and have a compelling enough application that you won't be outdone by someone with a more accessible interface.
