The web is interesting because we never had rich components provided by the browser to begin with. Web applications have always had to draw everything but the m

The web is interesting because we never had rich components provided by the browser to begin with. Web applications have always had to draw everything but the most basic inputs themselves, and the design of web apps has evolved accordingly. In an alternate universe, where web apps were embraced by the platform from the start rather than something people had to shoehorn into a document sharing mechanism, and we had rich components built-in, then yes I would probably be annoyed if people insisted on rolling their own versions. After all, I am annoyed when people use a span with a click handler instead of a proper anchor tag, because it usually breaks middle clicking or opening a link in a new tab—a platform convention I have internalised and expect to work. Note this only applies to web apps, not sites. Much like how I do not have any problem that magazines don’t share a common layout.