> Who thought it was a good idea to hand standard development to an ad company in the first place? It is actually not that bad an idea. Previously, software v

> Who thought it was a good idea to hand standard development to an ad company in the first place? It is actually not that bad an idea. Previously, software vendors were in charge, it didn't turn out well, you know, the whole Embrace Extend Extinguish thing. Hardware vendors are no better, they all want to keep competition away, especially if they have market dominance, and (lack of) standardization is a way to achieve that. Other standard bodies include bureaucratic entities, like committees and governments. They have the right incentives, but they have a hard time keeping up with the latest developments, the standards become obsolete in practice and people stop following them. Communities are a mixed bag, RFCs are highly successful, but without big money behind it, it often goes nowhere, too easy to ignore. Ad companies have none of these problems. They are all for interoperability, they want to have their ads seen by everyone. They don't have time to wait, so they keep current. And they have enough power and money to make standards standard. The modern web is far from perfect, but it is way better than it was in the IE days.