The JVM is also massively more complex than WebAssembly. It defines its own object model, its own memory management system, its own enormous standard library.

The JVM is also massively more complex than WebAssembly. It defines its own object model, its own memory management system, its own enormous standard library. WebAssembly is how these things should have been done from the start. Leave the object model, memory management, and libraries to the languages built on top, where they can be changed without affecting the backwards compatibility story of the VM itself.