A number of the comments mention monoculture. But where does monculture end and a solid reliable and honest standard begin? For exampke, at some point the power grid and gasoline formulations were standardized, yes? TV screen sizes, tin cans and shipping containers. Is the browser not the shipping container of our time?
To call W3C a standard and then have different implementations is no standard at all. That is the nature of guidelines. The fact that said "standard" so often led to a suboptional UX only poured salt on the wound.
Maybe this really is bad news? But there doea seem to be some upside, monoculture or not.
Standard is an interface with multiple implementations. Shipping container standard with certain dimensions is good. Shipping container standard “from evil Google” is bad.
Standard can also be a ubiquitous implementation: OOXML, PDF, CUDA, Linux, glibc, pulseaudo, ffmpeg, imagemagick, tensorflow, systemd, Windows, MySQL, React, Java, QT, Electron.
Since standards bodies these days are really documentation effots it seems silly to say that implementation defined standards aren't. It's practically where any 'proper' standard comes from these days where the market leader is essentially the reference implementation.
W3C has had only figurehead status for a number of years now. Browser standards have been defacto agreed by a consortium of the major browser vendors, and W3C have rubber stamped them.
To call W3C a standard and then have different implementations is no standard at all. That is the nature of guidelines. The fact that said "standard" so often led to a suboptional UX only poured salt on the wound.
Maybe this really is bad news? But there doea seem to be some upside, monoculture or not.