Thank you for the link, you too had a very nice discussion.
However I find unsetting how Eich ends up defending WASM by hoping it's not too successful (used only in some hot pathes, not full blob apps.) That's frankly quite ridiculous: I predict a full apps adoption pretty soon. Just wait for more mainstream languages to support it.
The open web in the sense the OP meant has been dead for a while, WASM is just another tombstone.
You'll notice that basically everyone involved with WASM agrees that it won't be used for full applications any time soon if ever. It's only people who aren't as involved who are calling for it.
WASM is not a replacement for javascript, and it's not trying to be. You won't be writing entire applications in whatever you compile to WASM, it's not how it's designed, it's not how it's meant to run, and it's worse in most ways than just compiling your favorite language to javascript (which has been possible for a long time now, but nobody uses it because it's such a leaky abstraction).
The open web is flourishing more than ever, and WASM is keeping that alive with it's "text" mode.
However I find unsetting how Eich ends up defending WASM by hoping it's not too successful (used only in some hot pathes, not full blob apps.) That's frankly quite ridiculous: I predict a full apps adoption pretty soon. Just wait for more mainstream languages to support it.
The open web in the sense the OP meant has been dead for a while, WASM is just another tombstone.