Then I wanted to start building non-JS websites. And suddenly "Web" Components just weren't an option. Now I've dug even further to SSR, and the shortcoming is painful. I don't want to use Next.js, I want to use HTML. I want standards.
Maybe in 4-5 years this will finally be a solved problem...
> Maybe in 4-5 years this will finally be a solved problem...
Of course it won't. And of course it won't be HTML.
Thing is, Webkit wanted to start with HTML and with all things declarative [1] Google wanted to "move fast".
Result? The need a few dozen more standards to patch deficiencies in WC design, and most of those standards involve piling more and more Javascript on top. See this 2022 status report: https://w3c.github.io/webcomponents-cg/2022.html
So now we are in year 12 of this catastrophe, and you are expecting it to end in another 4-5?
If you want to build non-JS sites, web components won't save you. They require JS. They cannot work without JS.
You're much better off using Next, Nuxt, SvelteKit, SolidStart, Marko... Anything that doesn't use them.
[1] https://twitter.com/rniwa_dev/status/1352322006448947203?s=2...