Do web standards slow down progress?

[Johnsie]

I know the web standards do change as time goes on, but does forcing everyone to use the same set of standards slow down the progress of inventing new web technologies?

[LaRoza]

No. The standards are made by people involved (so it isn't random people).

In fact, if you look at all the standards in existance, and look at how they are implemented, you'll see a lost sea of browsers doing 1/10 of what they should be able to.

Did you know there is a free XML based language for vector graphics that can be embedded into websites? It allows animations also. SVG it is called. Only one browser has any meaningful support for it, and it is hardly seen on the web.

Did you know about a markup language for mathematical equations? Hardly implemented at all in browsers (MathML).

XHTML itself isn't fully implemented by everyone, nor is ECMA-262 (ECMAScript, aka JavaScript and JScript)

If they all focused on implementing the standards that exist, they'd be far ahead of where they are now.