Thread · 5 tweets · 7 Jan 2024

Apathy is certainly a problem but I don't think it's because people aren't getting paid (even though paying people is of course good). In my experience the two primary drivers of apathy are how hard it is to get started and the fact that developers have no real power.

Barriers to entry come in multiple shapes. Some things are legitimately hard, no one uses email, the process can be counterintuitive, it's intimidating, sometimes toxic, and there's no broad education or outreach about how to do it. Some of this is fixable.

The second is harder: people don't see the point because they're not empowered. I know that browser devs try to be open to input (not everyone tries very hard, but still) but at the end of the day devs just aren't in command and the implementation decisions are opaque.

People don't want to beg for features, they don't want to be (selectively) listened to, they don't want a call centre: they want to be empowered to get shit done. There are ways to fix that too, but I doubt the level of democratic commitment will be appealing to major browsers.

To give an example, I spent much of 2020 making calls to dozens of publisher or dev teams that I know have real web issues but never show up. I got the same answer *everywhere* (not some, all): Why would I work to participate when $BigCompany will just do what they want anyway?