> I guess the big difference is that not many people write in bytecode, but a lot of people (majority in my experience, which might change) write in pure Javascript
That's purely a matter of preference. If you want, you can write in Java, C# or C++ and compile that to JavaScript, many major websites use that approach.
The fact that many people still write pure JavaScript shows the opposite of what the article says: People like it and are productive with it. If they were not, they would more often write in something else and compile to it.
