To hell with web standards

I wrote this post in 2010, more than 14 years ago. It may be very out of date, partially or totally incorrect. I may even no longer agree with this, or might approach things differently if I wrote this post today. I rarely edit posts after writing them, but if I have there'll be a note at the bottom about what I changed and why. If something in this post is actively harmful or dangerous please get in touch and I'll fix it.

Ian Hickson (emphasis added):

Someone whom I can’t identify publicly, since he posted only on one of the secret W3C member lists, contributed to the following thread […]
Net result: the latest publication of HTML5 is now blocked by Adobe, via an objection that has still not been made public […]

Secret W3C member lists? Anonymous holds? What is this, the Senate?

Some might say this is Adobe’s fault.

Bullshit: what possible purpose could secret lists and anonymous holds offer except to allow – no, to condone – this behavior. The process allows this kind of action; I blame the process.

YT, about a year ago:

[I]t’s become obvious to me that the W3C is increasingly irrelevant. Though I think the W3C has done wonders for the web development community, these days I simply don’t think about the W3C in my daily work. Nor do any of the web professionals I know.
[…]
The W3C is off in lalaland building this supposed next generation of web standards, and we’re told to just wait until these specs are finished. […] And because these new standards are so pie-in-the-sky, browsers themselves are getting less standardized.

A year ago, I was hoping to be proven wrong. Today, I know I was right.

W3C, I owe you my career. Your work made the web a better place. I can’t possible express the depth of my gratitude.

Today, though, you’re irrelevant. I just don’t care anymore. I’m done with validation, done with changing doctypes every year to follow the latest fads, done with trying to keep track of which parts of CSS3 and HTML5 I can actually use.

To hell with web standards.