TLDR: OK for tearing down openID if it means cleaner code, but vision-impaired people should be allowed to still answer, and if possible upvote and comment without JavaScript.
At the end of April 2018, OpenID is necessary to log in, ask questions, answer and edit on the sites of the StackExchange network without any JavaScript. But Logging in needs, as of April 2018, OpenID as explained in new message Because JavaScript is disabled, you can only log in by entering your OpenID URL manually:
.
Previously, in 2013 and at the time the above question and this answer were created, openID and some whitelisting of some JavaScript sites were necessary to answer, comment, and chat on the sites of the StackExchange network.
BestThe best browsers for vision-impaired people (me!) do not support JavaScript but are the only choice for blind users out there. I am fortunate enough to be able to use firefox, but what about truly blind people?
Security-conscious users also tend to use the fewest possible JavaScript websites.
This is also a way to speed up a lot the time to show web pages. The fastest load time is with the lynx browser. Lynx is fast because it does load images. Lynx browser also happens to be favored by blind people with text readers.
My life
I use lynx 99% of the time. No interest in seeing images except for click-bait pages.
I use firefox for www.sharelatex.com, to vote or answer on StackExchange websites, for google agendas, and for shopping. The rest, among which news.google.fr, gmail.com, searching (including in StackExchange websites), ... I do that in lynx browser. I just started answering and editing posts on the lynx browser also. But I would also like to favorite (the favorite button is an unhelpful link to the current question), upvote, and comment nicely, and as a side have a better interface than manually entering the URL https://<URL>.com/posts/<Question ID>/comments
to open hidden comments.
PS: I am now editing this post using lynx browser, thanks @KevinMontrose for the work. Though I like to be able to upvote questions and answers, I'll do that a few times a day if it did not require a graphical browser like firefox.