Why you probably do want jQuery....

gistfile1.js

/*
   http://youmightnotneedjquery.com/ has been a topic of recent discussion lately. It has an interesting point,
   but I was curious how much code you don't have to write when using jQuery vs native js

   Here is the output of the following code when run against youmightnotneedjquery.com
   
   
   jquery total length:  6,174
   ie8    total length: 11,223 
   

   not using jquery almost DOUBLES the code you have to  write. 

   (output formated for readability)
*/

/* if you want to run this yourself, make sure you add a reference to jquery, they don't have one ;) */

$(function () {
    var jqTotalLength = 0;
    var ie8TotalLength = 0;
    $(".jquery").each(function(i, e) {
        jqTotalLength += $(e).text().length
    })
    $(".ie8").each(function(i, e) {
        ie8TotalLength += $(e).text().length
    })
    
    console.log("jquery total length: " + jqTotalLength);
    console.log("ie8 total length: " + ie8TotalLength);
}