We live in a tyranny of the majority world, where Dino Rossi can’t win an election because Seattle doesn’t want him to, and where I can’t visit a news site and watch all of the video because Joe Schmoe web dev can’t let go of the platform he develops on.

Joe Schmoe web dev should not care what I show up to his party with, as long as I bring my own drinks.

It’s also worth point out that like it or not, you’re using the (growing) minority platform, and last I checked majority rules in this world.

I think you are right. But I also think that it would be pointless to not try to change it and I think that change begins right here. On this blog, in this small little corner of the world.

Am I correct in interpreting that I would not have to stop and think about which OS/Browser/Phone has the biggest market and I could just build one time for all, with the same set of “standards”

I get the impression that you think the same thing that I do about the current web standards. They’re a complete joke. Not only does it take too long to get anything adopted, but often by the time a standard is adopted it has been outmoded because technology moves too fast for bureaucracy. Even worse is that there is no consequence for a particular browser failing to support a standard as written. The W3C has no teeth.

It’s a problem that I think only web developers can solve.

I would put to you, that cross platform development would require developers to be more nimble and require them to innovate more than they do when developing for a single platform and would only serve to inspire and drive further innovation of web based technologies because there would be no neat, tidy little box that everything fits inside of. But first, the devs have to give up on the idea that only one platform exists. They have to let go of the crutch that is the OS and begin doing something new.

Only then, can true innovation begin.

I know that what I am discussing is a bit difficult here because I know that I am speaking in generalities and not specifics and I am debating philosophy rather than statutes. But changing minds and attitudes does not come about by debating specific statutes and the virtues of this OS over that OS. It comes from debating the premise upon which current statutes were built. It comes from questioning the judgment of our current selves and having the foresight to look to a future that is not bound to our present.

I’m asking you, as a web designer, to think about a future web that is not chained to IE. I’m asking you to conceive of a web that is not tied to a specific platform and, in my wildest dreams, is only limited by your imagination and your ability. I am, quite literally, asking you to think about changing the world in a way that only you are equipped to do. I’m asking you to tackle the problem of what comes after the OS because the day is coming, when we won’t need it anymore.

It’s not coming fast, but the writing is on the wall.