„Standard media type” has different meaning in the comment you refer to and in the quote.

This is not a very helpful response.

You reference a comment that basically says that REST is HTML UI talking to server via links and forms, rather than interaction with JSON or XML-based API. This is not correct, neither according to original dissertation nor according to modern understanding of RMM 3 APIs. API using JSON can support HATEOAS. Standard media type in the sense of REST is not the W3C media type, but anything that both server and client can understand. appilcation/hal+json is a good example.

Nope. Try again. It "basically" says what it says—which is the same thing that the part you quoted from Fielding says—and nowhere does it say that the media type has to be HTML, which is what you (now) seem to be implying (but are unable or unwilling to articulate for some reason).

How exactly do you understand the following quote that is part of what you call a „good explanation“?

> REST is about completely decoupling the client and server (in terms of prior knowledge) beyond standardized media types (HTML, CSS, JS)

I understand it the way it's written. I don't know what you're looking for here; jcrites is not staying that { HTML, CSS, JS } are prerequisites to REST. They're giving examples of standard media types. If there are other media types for which it is possible to do REST, then those are acceptable, too, of course. But HTML is not a requirement.

The comment you're complaining about says "beyond standardized media types (HTML, CSS, JS)".

"Beyond" in this case means "not only".