The web is backwards. Designers and web site operators spend ridiculous amounts of engineering trying to control what users see, with the limitation that they have no control (other than exclusion) over what software the users chooses to view the content.

HTML went way too far IMO, trying not only to represent the structure of information, but ALSO trying to solve the layout problem.

It will never happen, but I long for a web where layout and content are disassociated. Where content is structured, requested by clients, delivered by servers, and then the client chooses the layout. Blind? Terminal only? Compute limited? No problem, use an agent that works for you.

But big content wants CONTROL. They want to control what you see, how you see it, and what the preconditions are. They also want the web to be an application platform (that they can control, of course, and not have to deal with Apple or Google or Microsoft) that is free to them and supports all their controls.

<rant/>