> I think this would result in protocols over walled gardens. I don't see how it would. I think it would have led to something equivalent to JavaScript, becau

> I think this would result in protocols over walled gardens. I don't see how it would. I think it would have led to something equivalent to JavaScript, because that's exactly the route we took to get to here. The WWW started as just documents, and there were plenty of protocols for other internet things. Businesses and consumers (and almost everyone else) want more than documents, and avoiding requiring people to install and run a separate client for every purpose (and requiring developers to build said cross-platform clients) led to plug-ins and then capable JavaScript.