I’ve noticed both “plain HTML please” and “Wasm is awesome” sentiments expressed on HN. I wonder if these reflect two distinct subpopulations, or if there is an intersection of HNers who like both ideas.

The existence of both sentiments speaks to the idiosyncratic history of the web. The browser is powerful because it has grown to be ubiquitous, but also has this odd dual mandate of displaying static content and running dynamic apps.