Comment by danudey
4 years ago
I agree that it would be nice to have a limited amount of the Web MIDI spec, but bear in mind the staggering few people who actually have MIDI devices, and the even more staggering few of those people who want to use whatever website has midi support for its features.
To answer your question about why not to just limit the API: because that would be another data point to use to fingerprint users, and because the amount of engineering time that would have to go into Web MIDI support (including testing, security auditing, etc.) would never be worthwhile compared to putting those same developers on something that might be beneficial to vastly more users.
(Also note that Firefox made the same decision to implement nothing at all.)
This is just a philosophical standpoint, but I think supporting the interests a small group of experimental pioneers is generally more useful than their numbers would imply.
The idea that "staggering few" is a negative disappoints, given it has almost always been the "staggering few" who've progressed humanity.