X11 is obviously insanely flexible, no one will argue that. It is also riddled with complexity, security problems, and performance problems. Programs like xlock

X11 is obviously insanely flexible, no one will argue that. It is also riddled with complexity, security problems, and performance problems. Programs like xlock are notorious for numerous security problems over the years, for precisely this reason. Yeah programs like xlock work now, but it took 20 years to get them to be not completely broken. If you think X11 is basically secure and just works, you're either delusional or brand new to Linux/Unix. Wayland is way simpler, has a more secure design, and handles modern GPUs much more efficiently. It's missing a lot of features X11 had, but the fact that you can use one program to run a screensaver, another program to lock the screen, and another program to do window management (oh, and also another program which is the actual X11 server) is something that 1% of users care about. The other 99% of users are OK with using Gnome or KDE or XFCE or whatever other desktop environment just does all this stuff. The client/server argument held weight 5 or 10 years ago, but waypipe exists now and works great (I would know, I use it regularly myself). Actually it works much better than X11 forwarding ever did thanks to the modern compression codecs it has built in. And the fact that the waypipe code is just a regular unprivileged application rather than something built into the compositor means that I don't need to worry about what security holes. Your comment just reads as a bunch of half thought out anecdotes (not all of which are factually accurate). There's a reason why basically EVERYONE who is actually knowledgeable about how X11 works decided that it was completely broken and welcomed Wayland when it came along.