Fourteen years of battle culminated in the web’s responsive image markup, a syntax that lets browsers pick the best source for a device. The author, a former RICG chair, admits both championing and despising the system.

The story begins in the early 2000s when front‑end specialists pushed browser vendors to adopt responsive images. After years of drafts, debates, and prototype work, a workable syntax emerged and browsers were finally updated.

Despite its usefulness, the author confesses that the markup’s opaque algorithm and reliance on browser‑defined choices left developers frustrated. The implementation‑defined selection step, buried in the HTML spec, keeps designers from controlling which image a user receives.

Today, responsive images remain essential for saving bandwidth and improving performance, yet developers must accept the trade‑off of relinquishing fine‑grained control to the browser’s selection logic.