Let's dispense with the "amateurs" first: the complete stack is build almost exclusively by people employed by Google, Facebook, Apple, Mozilla, and a handful of smaller, but at least as professional, companies.
Then, I don't understand the rest of the argument. Open Source software has simply won in the marketplace, mostly because of it's openness, rarely because of it's price.
Example: Operating Systems, which is the rare beast where an actual closed-source competitor still exists. Yet the Windows marketshare on the server is around 10%, and I doubt that it's the price that encourages all those Unicorns to chose Linux. Databases are a similar story.
> Neither of these necessarily implies writing or maintaining ideal tools to support web development more widely
It doesn't necessarily do that, but in the case of Google specifically, it does: they need the open web as a platform to compete against the "walled gardens" of Apple and Facebook. Their interests happen to be aligned with those of web developers, which is why Chrome has revitalised browser competition, easily beating the laser-focused team at Mozilla.
> Unfortunately, because so much of the influence is now concentrated with so few organisations or even individual people
The influence is spread out far wider today than it was at the time where Microsoft and Flash were able write APIs without asking anybody.
But, more importantly, I'm unsure what you want? A version of React that supports IE 6 and lynx? They have that, it's called XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
Let's dispense with the "amateurs" first: the complete stack is build almost exclusively by people employed by Google, Facebook, Apple, Mozilla, and a handful of smaller, but at least as professional, companies.
You might like to take a look at the history of Babel (formerly 6to5) as one prominent counter-example. For several years, much of the web development community has been relying on a great tool that was originally written by one talented young amateur.
Open Source software has simply won in the marketplace, mostly because of it's openness, rarely because of it's price.
Chrome being prominently advertised every time anyone visited a Google site using another browser probably didn't hurt. Being installed by default on the most popular mobile OS also didn't hurt. If openness were all it took, Firefox would surely still be a more prominent player.
It doesn't necessarily do that, but in the case of Google specifically, it does: they need the open web as a platform to compete against the "walled gardens" of Apple and Facebook.
Google wants people to use the Web because it makes its money primarily from advertising on web sites. It is in Google's direct financial interest to support the part of the Web ecosystem that in turn supports advertising. That typically doesn't include, for example, corporate intranets, or embedded UIs in network-connected devices, or academic sites, which are three big areas where web technologies are widely used but stability and long-lasting content are more highly valued.
Their interests happen to be aligned with those of web developers, which is why Chrome has revitalised browser competition
Writing as a professional web developer who often works in those other areas I mentioned, Chrome hasn't revitalised browser competition. On the contrary, it's become the new IE from the old browser wars. A lot of the new functionality only works properly in Chrome, and often it's not reliable even there because of the frequent updates that change behaviour and/or introduce regressions. There's no real concern about proper standardisation or compatibility or longevity any more.
But, more importantly, I'm unsure what you want?
I want the fundamental tools on which much of the ecosystem now relies not to break everything that predates a standard that is less than two years old and still not fully supported across many active browsers. In this case, that means being able to install packages from NPM with a reasonable expectation that they will not require a substantial extra build process to be used.
Obviously no-one contributing NPM packages has any obligation to respect that. It's not as if we're all paying for their openly licensed work. I just think the community as a whole will otherwise suffer yet more overheads getting infrastructure set up instead of actually getting useful work done.
Then, I don't understand the rest of the argument. Open Source software has simply won in the marketplace, mostly because of it's openness, rarely because of it's price.
Example: Operating Systems, which is the rare beast where an actual closed-source competitor still exists. Yet the Windows marketshare on the server is around 10%, and I doubt that it's the price that encourages all those Unicorns to chose Linux. Databases are a similar story.
> Neither of these necessarily implies writing or maintaining ideal tools to support web development more widely
It doesn't necessarily do that, but in the case of Google specifically, it does: they need the open web as a platform to compete against the "walled gardens" of Apple and Facebook. Their interests happen to be aligned with those of web developers, which is why Chrome has revitalised browser competition, easily beating the laser-focused team at Mozilla.
> Unfortunately, because so much of the influence is now concentrated with so few organisations or even individual people
The influence is spread out far wider today than it was at the time where Microsoft and Flash were able write APIs without asking anybody.
But, more importantly, I'm unsure what you want? A version of React that supports IE 6 and lynx? They have that, it's called XHTML 1.0 Transitional.