> The browser wars are long gone, and there is no technical reason why the standards each browser added had to be complex per-use-case builtins instead of composable primitives.

Browser vendors couldn't see the future. Each was doing their best to stand out from the crowd with limited budgets and schedules. Hence JS being as odd as it is.

With hindsight it's clear it could've been better. And now with today's mono-culture there is an opportunity to drop some of the legacy cruft and rethink a modern web. Or even just slimmer Electron-like solutions using an ideal subset as better primitives.

I really wish something like FirefoxOS had gained traction. Because unlike Android, it could make native apps so much more open an approachable. In theory at least.