> OK, but do you think you would be well-served if this problem were solved by there being only ONE manufacturer of power drills, take what they give you at the price they charge or nothing?
Imagine having 20 different gas guzzling cars with 20 different proprietary fuel inlets. If you buy an Audi say, you'd have to go to the Audi refilling station.
> What would be the analogy with browsers, do you think?
There's no need for analogy -- we've experienced this in the past, e.g., MS ActiveX and other Internet Explorer bugs (or features). There's also the proprietary web, e.g. SilverLight and Flash, before HTML5 Canvas came along.
And then HTML5 was a branding effort. Browsers needed to support it to be marketable to the general public. Things just started working again without needing to install plugins or to keep plugins up to date (Flash) -- it was a better web.
The W3C could do this if the web gets too fragmented again.
What a strange argument. The diversity in cars helped set the universality in the gas port. The same thing is happening with electric vehicles. Yeah, there are some proprietary ones like Tesla, but as more manufacturers have gotten into the space there have become standards as companies realize that a standard charging port helps them beat Tesla (being a united force). Network effects are real.
My rebuttal is saying that your premise is bad and indicating why. I can't disagree with points because I disagree with the foundation you build your points on.
Imagine having 20 different gas guzzling cars with 20 different proprietary fuel inlets. If you buy an Audi say, you'd have to go to the Audi refilling station.
> What would be the analogy with browsers, do you think?
There's no need for analogy -- we've experienced this in the past, e.g., MS ActiveX and other Internet Explorer bugs (or features). There's also the proprietary web, e.g. SilverLight and Flash, before HTML5 Canvas came along.
And then HTML5 was a branding effort. Browsers needed to support it to be marketable to the general public. Things just started working again without needing to install plugins or to keep plugins up to date (Flash) -- it was a better web.
The W3C could do this if the web gets too fragmented again.