# Web Standards and the Fall of the House of Iamus

DevFeed: [Web Standards and the Fall of the House of Iamus](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/web-standards-and-the-fall-of-the-house-of-iamus-26559.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://infrequently.org/2025/09/standards-and-the-fall-of-iamus/>)

Author: Alex Russell

Published: 2025-09-21T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Alex Russell](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/alex-russell.md>)

Topics: [web-standards](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/web-standards.md>), [browsers](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/browsers.md>), [interoperability](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/interoperability.md>), [Chromium](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/chromium.md>)

Tags: [apple](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/apple.md>), [browsers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/browsers.md>), [chromium](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/chromium.md>), [interoperability](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/interoperability.md>), [standards](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/standards.md>), [web](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/web.md>), [web-standards](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/web-standards.md>), [webdev](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/webdev.md>)

## AI overview

This commentary argues that web standards and Working Groups generally document, refine, and spread designs that have already demonstrated value rather than determining what browsers may ship. It concludes that responsible feature development depends on thoughtful launch processes, not prior consensus.

## Source excerpt

Photo by Photo by Artan Sadiku Commentary about browsers and the features they support is sometimes pejorative towards pre-standardisation features. Given Apple's constriction of Mozilla's revenue stream and its own strategic under-funding of WebKit, this usually takes the form "Chromium just ships whatever it wants." This is true, of course, but not in the way commenters intend; and not only because Blink's rigorous launch process frequently prevents unvalidated designs from shipping. Except for iOS, where Apple attempts to hide its role in undermining the competitive foundation of web standards, every vendor always ships "whatever it wants." That is the point of voluntary standards, and competition is the wind in those sails. Working Groups don't gate what browsers ship, nor do they define what's useful or worthy. There are no seers; no Delphic oracles that fleetingly glimpse a true logos. Working Groups do not invent the future, nor do they hand down revealed truths like prophets of the House of Iamus. In practice, they are thoughtful historians of recent design expeditions, critiquing, tweaking, then spreading the good news of proposals that already work through Web Standards ratified years after features first ship, serving to licence designs liberally to increase their spread. In the end, this is the role of standards and the Working Groups that develop them: to license patents that read on existing designs, reducing risks to implementers who adopt them. Anyone who tries to convince you otherwise, or invites you to try your hand at invention within a chartered Working Group, does not understand what those groups are designed to do. Sadly, this includes some folks who spend a lot of time in them. Contents Terminology Traps Standardisation != Interoperability Standardisation != Responsibility What Working Groups Really Do Chartered Working Groups Are Not Design Venues The Role of Incubation No Prophecies, Only Engineering Complaints about certain engines leading