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Lately, I've been sensing a fair amount of apathy in our corner of the web industry, concerning the fight for web standards. It is as if a lot of people have started wondering, "is it all really worth the effort?" Or maybe some of us feel that, after all, it's just a part of our job and not a life goal? Maybe it really is - but then, what fight, exactly, are we fighting right now?

For years now have many of us worked hard to promote web standards, to send out the message that clean, elegant and proper implementations of semantic and well-structured markup, the separation of structure and presentation offered by CSS-based design and unobtrusive, JavaScript-powered progressive enhancements are the key to creating the most efficient, scalable and accessible websites. Some have been doing it for as long as ten years, being the early adopters of technologies still so much in their infancy that it was really hard for them to get their message out in the open at all.

But today, things are certainly different. Most of us have long been taking web standards for granted: it's just the way we work, because it's the best way to build websites. Empirically best, even, though the details of each aspect and process are always subjective and always up for debate. The point is, even when we disagree with each other, amongst our own ranks, we will still agree on the core principle that the proper use of web standards is the way to go about our business. It's a no-brainer!

When you've been living and working with web standards for so long, the novelty of the message fades. Not for everyone, of course, but for enough people for it to become apparent. The last few years have given us many rapid developments that had dramatic impact on our way of work: CSS-based design became a lot more feasible, new browsers emerged in the market, Internet Explorer's market share started dropping heavily, AJAX and other JavaScript things emerged to give us wholly impressive web applications, and so forth and so forth. But what's next?

Because I want to end this post in a positive note, I am going to do a reversed version of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

The Ugly

Ironic to its title, it was the very photogenic David Thompson who reminded me last night of this train of thought that's been going through my mind for a while now.

When certain people and events in an industry (or just a fairly isolated part thereof) can get tiring enough to make other people consider leaving the industry altogether, the question is raised: what exactly is it all for? The people or the message?

I was recently given the perspective of someone, or possibly several people for which the one was speaking on behalf of, which essentially meant that the recently held @media conference was about the social networking. That's right: not the contents of the panels and keynote presentations, but the social events around it.

Now, I am all in favor of social events and networking - I'm quite sure people have thought of me as a networking-fanatic, the way I tend to try and talk to absolutely every person whose name I know at such events. However, I also strongly value the content and the message. I expect to always learn something of great value at a conference, so if that were to not happen, then no matter how great the parties might be, I will feel sad and dismayed about it.

So it took me by quite a bit of surprise to learn of this perspective. If more people adopt this point of view, what happens to the message? The real content? It gets lost, that's what happens.

All things said, it's a rather ugly direction for this industry as a whole, so I certainly hope that this will remain an isolated incident.

The Bad

When the people fighting for the cause of web standards stop fighting, does that mean they won or that they have given up? Considering the fact that most websites out there still use table-based design, inaccessible markup and obtrusive JavaScript, your answer would lean towards the latter. Fortunately, we are not quite at such a sad state of affairs at all. A few isolated incidents may, at worst, signify a trend, but there is no indication at all that "most" people are losing interest in the fight for standards. Even "many" would be a grossly incorrect view on things, as it is rather "some" or even just "a few."

Still, there is reason to analyze the cause of this trend - or hint of a trend, if you will. One of the many principles in Kaizen is as follows: when an abnormality occurs, or a pattern is discovered, there is a problem somewhere, and so to fix the problem one must backtrack each step in the process and analyze the results to discover what causes the problem. Only when the true cause is identified can the problem really be fixed.

So what is the problem here? One reason could be that some people just didn't find enough appeal in the pro-active fight for web standards. Another reason could be that they just don't feel like they personally contribute to the fight that much, thus leaving it to others who they consider to do a better job. Yet another reason could be the simple fact that the web standards movement has grown thusly large that it has become saturated: too many people fighting for a cause is no good. A different way of thinking about that: you can't be the underdog if the majority is rooting for you and you've already proven to be the stronger side.

Is the web standards movement the stronger side, though? In many ways, I say yes, yes indeed. Are (the proper uses and implementations of) web standards not gaining ground rapidly? Are colleges and universities not slowly adopting new teaching methods to include CSS-based design, semantic markup and accessibility? Are our numbers not increasing on a daily basis? Are new browsers not actively trying to offer the best standards-support currently available? Even the biggest corporations on this planet are starting to get the message and make their move to web standards. By all means, you can say the web standards movement is shaping up to be an unstoppable giant of good things.

But all that may just be a theory. Truth be told, I don't think anyone can really tell what the reason and cause for the problem is. In fact, many people I know will even flat-out deny the problem is there to begin with! And they have a good reason to do so, because if you just look at some of the organizations and groups emerging to fight for web standards, it would almost be an insult to the lot of them to speak of this problem.

The Good

Ahh, finally some time for optimism!

Suppose the market for web standards enthusiasts is getting saturated - should that be a concern to us? A worry? Absolutely not!

It is fairly reasonable to believe that the web standards movement has gotten enough momentum by now to kind of "snowball" its way to ongoing success from here on. If such were the case, it is only logical that some people will fail to see a dire need to add their efforts to the fight, and instead will opt to focus on their own work, their job, life, you name it.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that: it's a good thing by all accounts. It means that all the people that are still very actively fighting the fight are doing a good job, a fantastic job. Their efforts are working, they are winning the fight. It is, after all, an indication that we may yet see a time where we no longer have to convince people to use semantic and accessible markup - they will be doing it on their own already.

In the end, web standards are just that: web standards. You can love them all you want, but only a very select few can make a living just by loving them, promoting them and fighting for them. Pretty much all of us still have our daily jobs which don't (necessarily) involve speaking at conferences and doing workshops and presentations day in day out. Those very select few who do get to do all that should consider themselves lucky, for it does make for a very interesting and insightful life. The rest of us, well, we most certainly are lucky as well, just in different ways. The important thing is, though: luck or not, what matters is what we deliver. So let's just deliver a good job, whether it's fighting for standards or simply using them in our daily work. What say ye?

I say Aye!

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