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you can not have both competition in the browser market, and every browser being the exact same all the time...

I prefer less monopoly and more competition

> you can not have both competition in the browser market, and every browser being the exact same all the time...

Are you claiming that there can't be such a thing as web standards? HTML?

Why would an extension standard be any different from an HTML standard?

Web standards should specify the semantics of HTML, CSS, etc, not dictate how exactly the browser operates. Limiting extensibility of all browsers just because there is some webextensions standard is ridiculous. Similarly, browsers should be able to ignore user-hostile parts of specs like the HSTS spec trying to dictate that users cannot override the certificate validitation.

In fact, even how websites are rendered should ultimately be up to how the user has configured his browser even if some spec says otherwise. This includes being able to install effective ad blockers that remove elements and deny requests that should be there according to the standard.

Think of web standards more as the definition of a common language between websites and browsers and not as a rulebook for either.

> It may or may not have been a bad choice

It was a necessary choice, the previous framework for extensions was not multiprocess-compatible.