Aren't Cascade Layers [1] a more reliable, native solution to the specificity problem? In 2026, why not lean on them instead of source order?
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_developme...
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_developme...
Like many new-ish CSS features, adoption is low; around 4-5% from a crawl of 17 million sites [1]. It's been available in all major browsers since 2022.
I'm generally addressing developers who are never going to use any (or very little) modern CSS [2]. There was a thread on HN where some participants complained about "all these newfangled CSS features". Several didn't see the need to learn CSS Grid, even though it's been available for nearly 10 years. (Aside: I really disliked the floats/tables-for-layouts era, with the requisite IE hacks.)
There are lots of developers who don't see a need to use features they weren't using in the late '90s or early 2000s. For a lot of them, they'd rather use the devil they know.
There’s a huge gap between web developers who speak at web conferences, appear on CSS-themed podcasts, and who are members of standards bodies vs the 9-5 developer that works for some insurance company or school, who's not a CSS enthusiast or hobbyist. Using ITCSS would be awesome them.
Finally, there's nothing unreliable or non-native about ITCSS; it's just CSS where the layers are in specificity order. It doesn't get any more native than that.
They're admittedly less useful if you're already using component-based design. That's closer to something like BEM in hyper-targeting each element.