Unfortunately we decided the correct way to provide the functionality was by layering bonkers ass abstractions on top of a system meant to largely display static text and images. In the year 2025 there is absolutely no reason we shouldn't have a unified coding language that allows you to render things in a web browser in a sane way.
At the very least we should have seen a substantial expansion of what HTML is capable of, closer to what HTMX is doing now, with a better way to style everything then fucking CSS. People complain about JavaScript but for my money CSS is the greatest sin.
I use inline styles mostly, with an external CSS file only used for a few very global styles. And I try to only use it very simply, avoiding all kinds of clever tricks that some dev think is the mark of good code.
Every other toolkit was not gaining adoption because it was shut down by one or the other corporation owning one or the other system. GTK is mostly irrelevant as it doesn’t do mobile.
Web stuff is best we could get away with circumventing corporate greed and ownership.
Even if we nag technically it could have less complexity - in reality not because all it was required to work around corporate bullshit.
Also iOS accessibility screen reader APIs are way better than the web. Accessibility actions for instance are great.
I am old enough to remember the days of Internet Explorer, I can tell you that it was not fun. It is a blessing that we can at least deliver some pretty decent web apps today, and we should keep pushing for it.
