> Does anyone think it would make sense to create a drastically simpler set of web standards, so that making web browsers would become much simpler? Everyone w

> Does anyone think it would make sense to create a drastically simpler set of web standards, so that making web browsers would become much simpler? Everyone wants simplicity but nobody agrees which parts are the superfluous ones. As long you pose the question vaguely enough people on HN will agree because any engineer knows "simplicity is good". But if you get more concrete about what to remove, watch the pushback: - Lets remove https, http is much simpler. (The privacy and security people will protest: We wanted simplicity but not like that!) - Lets remove all accommodations for accessibility - who cares about that stuff anyway? (Well at least the people who needs it does!) - Lets remove flexbox and grid - table tags and spacer gifs were good enough for everyone when I was young! (The law of conservation of complexity: You move the complexity from the browser implementation to the design implementation. Since there are more web designers than browser developers these days, it is not a good tradeoff.) - Lets remove colors and fonts and interactivity, the web is only intended for reading science papers! (Yeah just like the printing press was only intended to print the Bible, doesn't mean it it wrong to use it for other stuff.) - Lets remove HTML - people can just download PDF's!