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I support the html and browser spec being greatly simplified in general. Makes it easier to develop competing browsers.

But at the same time, people don't want web pages and web apps to become all fully opaque like Flutter web or complex, minified JS-heavy sites. Even the latter have many a11y benefits of markup.

I think that's a tradeoff.

Simplest approach would be to just distribute programs, but the Web is more than that!

Another simple approach would be to have only HTML and CSS, or even only HTML, or something like Markdown, or HTML + a different simple styling language...

and yet nothing of that would offer the features that make web development so widespread as a universal document and application platform.

I think most people just don't care, although the a11y benefits are truely important. HTML isn't going anywhere and often you need JS to make things more accessible.

But like, most people just want a site to work and provide value, save them time etc and the way the site is built is entirely unimportant. I find myself moving towards that side despite being somewhat of a web purist for years.

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