Well, it's not as if the reason we have the "standard" of blank lines between paragraphs on the web because early web browsers made a considered typographic dec

Well, it's not as if the reason we have the "standard" of blank lines between paragraphs on the web because early web browsers made a considered typographic decision against first-line indents. :) I don't think there was much conscious design in early web browsers at all with respect to typography and presentation, and this is actually one of the few "standards" established in those early days that we're still following over two decades later. That's not to say that it's a bad standard, just that it's a relatively arbitrary one. Personally, I prefer fiction, even on the web, to have first-line indents rather than spaced paragraphs, because I simply find it easier to read. This is likely in part because fiction often has much shorter paragraphs when you get into heavy dialogue. For non-fiction, I consider it more of a tossup.