Original CSS spec, for reference: https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1/#class-as-selector https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1/#class-as-selector The "good CSS" you're talking abo

Original CSS spec, for reference: https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1/#class-as-selector https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1/#class-as-selector The "good CSS" you're talking about was always the product of convention, and it was never sustainable for big, long-term projects. The CSS Zen Garden showcase only made sense in a world where everyone shared the same document or document structure. Those insane stylesheets depended on the source HTML document's inherent structure, which is the exact opposite of separation of concerns. Inexperienced developers always underestimated the complexity they were adding to their project by using overly abstract classes and hidden structures between the DOM and the stylesheets. Tailwind (or any reasonable CSS methodology even) recognizes these problems and solves them.