"HTML is insufficient to specify all the things you need to make a paper publishable."
Actually I've been wondering why we have to make academic papers "publishable". Majority of researchers read papers on computer. Even they read on paper, it's printed out from a downloaded PDF. If everything is transferred as electronic format, I'm not sure traditional typesetting is still necessary.
HTML based articles have option to be interactive and visually better. This enables better communication, which is the purpose of publishing papers. HTML is also more structured than close sourced PDF, and structured data is more machine friendly. I'm not only talking about SEO, but also citations/indexing/etc.. HTML is also easier to be embedded into other content. This makes, e.g. peer-review, easier.
If any, I think the main obstacle of HTML formatted technical papers is traditional publishers. They make a lot of money out of publishing and this would potentially squeeze their profit.
I might be biased on "majority of researchers read papers on computer". As to "high-quality typesetting", I think that depends on your standard of "high-quality". If the goal is "easier to read", then it doesn't have to be traditional typesetting. LaTex is not the only way to make authentic typesetting (and don't get me wrong; I use LaTex a lot myself). You can do that in HTML/CSS too. Actually HTML is more flexible on this because you can provide different views (e.g. Sans-Serif vs Serif fonts) for your reader for on-display reading and printed-out reading.
You can compile LaTeX to two different output formats if you want to. Sure, you'd have 2 different output files, but e.g. for slides, thats done very often.
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Actually I've been wondering why we have to make academic papers "publishable". Majority of researchers read papers on computer. Even they read on paper, it's printed out from a downloaded PDF. If everything is transferred as electronic format, I'm not sure traditional typesetting is still necessary.
HTML based articles have option to be interactive and visually better. This enables better communication, which is the purpose of publishing papers. HTML is also more structured than close sourced PDF, and structured data is more machine friendly. I'm not only talking about SEO, but also citations/indexing/etc.. HTML is also easier to be embedded into other content. This makes, e.g. peer-review, easier.
If any, I think the main obstacle of HTML formatted technical papers is traditional publishers. They make a lot of money out of publishing and this would potentially squeeze their profit.
While anecdotal, every researcher I know prints papers for reading or reviewing. High-quality typesetting makes printed papers much easier to read.
I might be biased on "majority of researchers read papers on computer". As to "high-quality typesetting", I think that depends on your standard of "high-quality". If the goal is "easier to read", then it doesn't have to be traditional typesetting. LaTex is not the only way to make authentic typesetting (and don't get me wrong; I use LaTex a lot myself). You can do that in HTML/CSS too. Actually HTML is more flexible on this because you can provide different views (e.g. Sans-Serif vs Serif fonts) for your reader for on-display reading and printed-out reading.
EDIT: typo
If there were a browser plugin that applied Knuth's linebreaking algorithm for printouts, this would be more appealing.
You can compile LaTeX to two different output formats if you want to. Sure, you'd have 2 different output files, but e.g. for slides, thats done very often.
Older generation, sure. But add about 80 that I know that prefer iAnnotate and an iPad or Surface to your list.