I have the same mixed feelings. Complexity is antidemocratic in a sense. The more complex a spec gets the fewer implementations you get and the more easily it can be controlled by a small number of players.

It’s the extend part of embrace, extend, extinguish. The extinguish part comes when smaller and independent players can’t keep up with the extend part.

A more direct way of saying it is: adopt, add complexity cost overhead, shake out competition.