Call me cynical but with things like HID and NFC, this feels very "embrace extend extinguish".
There's a reason the word "deprecate" occurs so ridiculously often in the web development --- Google's weapon of monopoly is change: they are basically trying to outrun competitors. It's not Microsoft's proprietariness, but a brazenly open show of sheer power.
There's a good argument to be made that WebHID is exactly that. There is already a HID API. This new one is just supposed to be "better" ... somehow... in some way... I'm not exactly sure what it is... but some googler on the internet says you should support it.
But if it were a strategy, "EEE" or "Embrace Extend Extinguish" is not a good term for it. Maybe call it EEEE. "Extend Extend Extend Extend".
By raising the bar on shiny but non-essential features, they make it harder for an open source browser to play. The new features may be fun options today but sooner or later those features will become standard, and website X won't work without Chrome.
From TFA:
> There is a long tail of human interface devices (HIDs) that are too new, too old, or too uncommon to be accessible by systems' device drivers
I can easily imagine a banking website one day requiring custom USB drivers for security. Similar things happened with ActiveX and IE in the MS EEE days.
Mozilla is increasingly on the Apple's side these days.
I’m perfectly fine with crippled browsers. In fact I prefer them to be. Even current browsers are way beyond scope and IMO should be slimmed down.
Unfortunately this path doesn't allow for much targetted advertising opportunities, so that's why Google et al wisely abandoned this path. ( /s )
The fact of the matter is that web still seems to be the last bastion of freedom where you have a decent chance of publishing your software without begging for approval from a Californian. It's also inherently portable and doesn't care which brand of laptop or phone did you buy.
Which is why the rent seekers are trying so hard to dismantle it instead of empowering it.
It's also inherently portable and doesn't care which brand of laptop or phone did you buy.
...as long as it's running Google's software.
It is good that Google still allows Firefox to exist. I hope this love for my go to browser lasts. Every day I pray it will last. I'm scared though, because deep in my heart of hearts, I know it won't last.
Edit: I removed some stuff I first wrote.
> It’s both surprisingly and dismayingly difficult to get people — especially computerists — to criticize the web and the web browsers — even more so perhaps today.
Definitely agree with this. People tend to view it as something handed down to them by Gods. It's not.
Edit 2: This needs a larger discussion. I just posted it as a new submission.
Why does Mozilla need permission from Google to exist? That sounds very very wrong.