My understanding is that corporations are constantly trying and sometimes succeeding at influencing w3c standards to go in a direction which is favorable to themselves. For example increasing the legitimacy of DRM and surveillance. Developers of non-profit software (eg mozilla) then have to choose whether to be out of compliance or support nefarious technologies. If they choose against supporting the standards, then all users notice is that the application "doesn't work" on certain websites.
I don't necessarily know if running away and hiding is along term solution to this though.