I'm a web dev and yes they could. It's annoying that web devs get blamed for it though, the reason for all the javascript is mostly business decisions out of our control.

Mainly the tracking scripts which the marketing department adds against out will. But also it's a lot cheaper to have a client-rendered web app than a traditional website (with client side rendering you can shut off all your web servers and just keep the api servers, our server side processing went down 90% in the switchover). And it's more efficient for the company to have one team working in one programming language and one framework that can run the backend and frontend, so the frontend ends being a web app even if it's not really necessary.

I bet a lot more people know what 0°C feels like than 0°F. One is freezing point, one is a completely arbitrary temperature which only gets called "the lowest you'll experience" as a post hoc rationalisation of Fahrenheit. Most people will never experience anything that cold, some people experience colder.

I even bet more people know what 100°C feels like than 100°F. One is accidentally getting scalded by boiling water, the other is a completely arbitrary temperature which is quite hot but not even the hottest you'll experience in America.