> View Source is already useless on most large sites
No it isn't. Web devs can easily read source on almost all sites all the time.
> Modern web sources aren't meant to be read by humans
Yes they are - that why we've got view-source.
> and it's really only one or two steps above being handed a compiled binary.
That's the point - it's NOT compiled binary.
The sanctity of View Source is exactly what's in question here, and I stand in the group that says "no" to closed-source web specifications.
So, uhh, I tried to view-source on a gmail tab. A solid wall of code. There's nothing there meaningful, not like the web pages of 1999 used to be.
If you're telling me you can browse the wall of code on a site like gmail.com and learn new tips and tricks from it, well, pull the other one, it's got bells on.
Some sites are pushing shitty, hard to read code, sure. But instead of allowing them to continue working against the spirit of the system, we should shame them, and use them as examples of what not to do. If a couple of bad politicians abuse their system, we don't say "fuck it. lets go back to a monarchy"
Heck I picked the front page of BBC News and opened it up. Wall of minified JS. Further down the page we see something that vaguely resembles normal HTML except for stuff like this:
<div id=markets_index_promo class="hidden" data-comp-meta="{"id":"markets_index_promo","type":"remote-portlet","handler":"remotePortlet","deviceGroups":null,"opts":{"assetId":"10263779","id":"market_data\/markets_index_promo","loading_strategy":"post_load","position_info":{"instanceNo":1,"positionInRegion":3,"lastInRegion":false,"lastOnPage":false,"column":"secondary_column"}}}">
Modern web sources are also made by people out for money and/or marketing, who by now even seem to have forgotten about graceful degradation and other things that would slow them down.
You don't ask IKEA what the best wood for a solid table is, what means "best" for them has to do with money and the ability to produce in bulk, while a carpenter who worked with all sorts of wood and isn't bothered about those restraints as much will give you a completely different answer. That's kind of how the web became, because IKEA is making more money with selling tables than master carpenters, or even just because they occured later chronologically, because they are "more modern" (which says nothing about quality and only something about time), they are now somehow seen as experts on tables.
It's interesting that in some ways today's JS heavy client apps are more open than similar server side apps from even just a couple years ago: obfuscated code is still viewable client side and browsers are good at providing deminified views in browser dev tools, and if sourcemaps are left in then you can jump directly to the unobfuscated/deminified sources in browser dev tools. Plus, most communications between chunky JS apps and their servers increasingly use friendly REST protocols, which again is its own sort of win for discoverability and friendliness to an informed user poking around inside of how things work.
:)
Also: Firefox is quite capable of following Apple, Microsoft and Google. The idea that MozCorp is not a Corp isn't right either.
So whilst "the web should not support rights management and voluntarily cede such content to other platforms" is a perfectly reasonable argument, I don't think the sanctity of View Source or Mozilla is a supporting point in favour.