Not the OP, but I still start most of my projects without TypeScript, especially if I'm working on it by myself. I do appreciate TypeScript, and I will happily use it in any bigger project or when I have collaborators. But there's just something that I really enjoy about being able to start a project without any build steps or installing stuff. I love to be able to just jam out some code and open a file in a browser to run it, or rsync it to my server and share it with my friends.