> being told web assembly helps some parts of Figma run faster feels like a big let down.
Not really when tools like Figma were not really possible before it
Not really when tools like Figma were not really possible before it
For developing brand new code, I don't think there's anything fundamentally impossible without Wasm, except SIMD.
Also, the ability to recompile existing code to wasm is often important. Unity or Photoshop could, in theory, write a new codebase for the Web, but recompiling their existing applications is much more appealing, and it also reuses all their existing performance work there.