The answer was kind of known before hand. It was to enable the use of GCed languages like Python on Ruby to create WASM applications. Meanwhile, non-GCed languages like Rust, C and C++ were supposed to continue to work as before on WASM without breaking compatibility. This is what they seem to have finally achieved. But I needed to make sure of it. So, here are the relevant points from the WASM GC proposal [1]:

  * Motivation
  - Efficient support for high-level languages
      - faster execution
      - smaller modules
      - the vast majority of modern languages need it

  * Approach
  - Pay as you go; in particular, no effect on code not using GC, no runtime type information unless requested
  - Don't introduce dependencies on GC for other features (e.g., using resources through tables)