> once there's a consensus the selected approach gets enshrined and implemented as a browser standard that everyone can use
That's kind of a charitable way to put it I think, implying democracy has anything to do with it. The "consensus" really is "will enough browser makers care to implement this thing?" meaning the consensus of TC39 and other bodies doesn't really matter much, what matters is the will of a select few corporations.
Even if you do squint and look at the committees involved and try to take the charitable view, you'll see that the future direction isn't so much dictated by any kind of "invisible hand of the market" but rather by who has the tenacity to show up and stick with it. That's how we get half measures like the Promise API, and abominations like EME.
Truth of the matter is that the standard bodies have no stick, so they just kind of have to hope that the big three (Blink, WebKit, Gecko) play ball, and these days increasingly the smaller two have to play catch up to Blink.
I commend everyone involved in these standards processes – they're doing a thankless and difficult job – but they're mostly paving Google's cow paths rather than those of "the market."
That's kind of a charitable way to put it I think, implying democracy has anything to do with it. The "consensus" really is "will enough browser makers care to implement this thing?" meaning the consensus of TC39 and other bodies doesn't really matter much, what matters is the will of a select few corporations.
Even if you do squint and look at the committees involved and try to take the charitable view, you'll see that the future direction isn't so much dictated by any kind of "invisible hand of the market" but rather by who has the tenacity to show up and stick with it. That's how we get half measures like the Promise API, and abominations like EME.
Truth of the matter is that the standard bodies have no stick, so they just kind of have to hope that the big three (Blink, WebKit, Gecko) play ball, and these days increasingly the smaller two have to play catch up to Blink.
I commend everyone involved in these standards processes – they're doing a thankless and difficult job – but they're mostly paving Google's cow paths rather than those of "the market."