> I'm looking at it as a consumer, not a web developer
Then why do you care if it is part of the browser or just a library? A consumer doesn't need to know that, certainly wont interact with a model element directly.
> you could argue that could be done just fine with html and javascript instead.
Not at the time the video controls where introduced and now many sites use DRM which would prohibit a pure js implementation unless you want to piss of Netflix, Amazon, etc. .
> Should everything that's not as popular then be dismissed?
There are finite browser developers working with finite time and finite resources. Why spend any of that on something a random web dev. can easily implement as a JS library?
Then why do you care if it is part of the browser or just a library? A consumer doesn't need to know that, certainly wont interact with a model element directly.
> you could argue that could be done just fine with html and javascript instead.
Not at the time the video controls where introduced and now many sites use DRM which would prohibit a pure js implementation unless you want to piss of Netflix, Amazon, etc. .
> Should everything that's not as popular then be dismissed?
There are finite browser developers working with finite time and finite resources. Why spend any of that on something a random web dev. can easily implement as a JS library?