There was a time when it was easy. Even Javascript was easy. All of this stuff was made for people, but we've abstracted it away so only machines ever touch it and what used to be easy is now a dark art.
HTML is "made for people" because it's a text-based markup format intended to be edited by people when designing a web page, simple as. If it were made for machines it would be a binary bytecode format. It isn't because it's meant for human beings to read and write. And human beings are capable of reading it and writing it.
I don't know what to tell you. This is simple, straightforward fact, but you seem weirdly offended by the mere premise.
What would be the best way to add markup to English? It seems like an unexplored question. And if we were to explore it, we would find many alternatives, ranking much higher on the "for people" scale than HTML.
HTML is not a semantic markup of English, it's a semantic markup of digital text documents. Yes, you would want to use keyboard-convenient glyphs to express this markup because the keyboard is the primary means by which a human inputs text into a computer, which itself is the primary means by which HTML documents are viewed. Also because HTML operates primarily within the context of typography, in other words, because the data that HTML marks up also consists of keyboard convenient glyphs. It only makes sense to use text glyphs to describe the transformation of text glyphs within the context of a textual medium of communication.
Even Markdown is essentially the same thing. There's little real difference between surrounding a word in asterisks versus <strong> or <b> tags to denote bold text, other than aesthetics.
>And if we were to explore it, we would find many alternatives, ranking much higher on the "for people" scale than HTML.
Like what? Interpretive dance? Arcane gestures? Singing the markup into being?
People have been using written language for thousands of years, representing written language with type for centuries, and using keyboards as an interface for generating text since long before computers were invented. It all seems to work just fine for many people. I'm curious what you think would be better.
꜐expandꜘourꜛglyph꜅workꜝ Wikipedia has something closer to what I envision as what the dudes who done did CSS done thought. Someothing closer to arranging your magazine on the page for others to surf, and also link it with other pages. The soothing letters of English and their stradivarian font-signatures so carefully plucked and delicately labored on in the ethers of Apple headquarters, are bruised and battered by slashing and elbowing />