I think this somewhat misses the point. The content is clearly there. When it fails to load javascript, instead of leaving the content there, it replaces the content with a message about requiring js

That's not "javascript helping them do it"

The "look-everyone-how-i-can-do-it" idea is likely part of the reason that sites like this use an "app" framework. There is nothing more technical or "cleverer" about simpler websites that do not use "app" frameworks.

The issue however is not the use of an Javascript app framework (I have no issue with their use), the issue is that people falsely pronounce Javascript to be "required" and users are shown a blank page or some other ungraceful failure when they turn JS off. Clearly, JS is not required to retrieve the information, as demonstrated above. The web developer is intentionally hostile to users retrieving the information with clients (user-agents) that do not cater to advertising.

Everyone knows how easy it is to detect whether the user has Javascript enabled or not. The question is what web developers say and do when they detect it is not enabled.

That line of thinking is why you need gigabytes of RAM just to check social media, all for a few kilobytes of text. HTML and CSS already give you all the visuals you'll ever need to display a little text.