> why does this element even exist? The deliberate explosion of the specs required to build a browser ensuring that Google has a permanent quasi-monopoly becau

> why does this element even exist? The deliberate explosion of the specs required to build a browser ensuring that Google has a permanent quasi-monopoly because the size of the specs outstrips all but a handful of company's ability to fund implementation. Some HN poster shared a link that I can't find that counted the words of the browser specs. I seem to remember it being in the low hundreds of millions. Hundreds of millions of words of spec to implement a browser. It's a piece of software engineering comparable in effort to a full OS. edit: my bad. 1,217 w3c specifications comprising 114 million words. https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.html https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.... So not plural, but outside of the scope of any company that can't afford to spend probably $10B on a product you can't charge for.