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> Is it really the case that browsers have default-enabled all sorts of extensions that are not yet widely supported by the rest of the ecosystem?

I don't know the answer, but it would be hard to blame them for following normal browser development practices on the standard they created for the purpose of being in browsers.

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Fair enough. I think it would be unfortunate if the WebAssembly language in browsers were a significantly different language than WebAssembly outside of browsers (just referring to language itself, not the overall runtime system). I don't think that has quite happened, and the outer ecosystem can probably catch up, but it worries me.

Non-browser environments are a little behind on the Wasm standard, but not by much. E.g. wasmtime has now landed support for Wasm GC. AFAIK they implement all phase 4 proposals. Wizard implements all the Phase 4 proposals as well. The Wasm 3.0 spec will be out soon, which will be a big milestone to motivate Wasm engines outside the Web to catch up.

We already had plenty of bytecode formats outside the browser since UNCOL was an idea in 1958, including as replacement for Assembly, with microcoded CPUs.

Now we get a couple of startups trying to make WebAssembly outside of the browser as if was a novel idea, never done before.

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