Sure, it's what Gnome Wayland does, but the Wayland protocol does sort of mandate that every frame should be perfect, and the cursor has to match the underlying

Sure, it's what Gnome Wayland does, but the Wayland protocol does sort of mandate that every frame should be perfect, and the cursor has to match the underlying content, e.g. if it moves over a text it has to change to denote that it is selectable. I do believe it is a useful tradeoff, though.