Are some of the tags in HTML 5 unnecessary?

Question

Aside, section, article, etc. seem unnecessary considering <div> does the same thing. I figure they are just easier for organizing your code, but why not make them a class? Do they serve some extra benefits?

Answer 1

to add to Farnaz.A and Mihail answer, in addition of semantic meaning and better organization of content, there are useful with SEO purpose (better ranking in web search results, better content classification by robots)...

appart of this three accessory points, there are quite "unnecessary" as you could achieve same visual site by using <div> instead, but without the help given and explained before ;P

however 𝐍𝐈𝐑𝐁𝐇𝐀𝐘 answer is only half true... there are not related to responsive website (as you could do so without them and by using <div> instead), even if most of modern (responsive) website use them for the three help points pointed before ^^

Answer 2

They have a semantic purpose