Yes, they have very different security models. Wasm is capability-based, starting from zero- a module declares what imports it needs, and the code that loads the module decides how to fulfill those imports. There's no other way for the module to talk to anything outside its own internals.
Thank you! That helps a lot.
From what I remember basically every plugin attempt in those days (Java, flash, activex, etc) were all a dumpster fire when it came to security.
WASM saw that and decided to make security priority number one from day one.
This makes sense. I had been thinking of it as something fundamentally different than plugins. But just "plugins done right" is a lot more compelling to me.