From what I remember, the Java VM took around a minute to start the first time you opened any page with a Java applet, and it locked the whole browser while it started. Compared to that, Javascript loaded instantly. Also keep in mind that much less was done in Javascript back then, so even though it was interpreted, it didn't feel that slow.

> and Java itself could have easily been used as the web-native language if it is made to interact with the DOM natively.

From what I recall, a Java applet could interact with the DOM directly (even though most applets didn't); the DOM specification had both Java and Javascript as targets, and it always felt to me that it favored the Java style in its interfaces.