I think class were needed because too many developers were creating their own (incompatible) class systems on top of prototypal inheritance (which is more verbose).
The problem with Typescript is that too many Typescript developers don't understand Javascript itself, which is an completely different issue. That and the obsession for some to reproduce JEE everywhere including in the browser...
In my humble opinion, they're both fine. Use functions where you need to, and do the same with classes. They're both citizens of the language, so why not utilize them?
