Yeah, the social factor is way more important. We might actually get WORA that can't be blocked by a walled garden, cause it would be a suicidal move for whichever company does it.
it's not just the social factor, it's that there's an immediate benefit to using it - your code can be run in a web browser. that solves the bootstrapping problem with your shiny new WORA bytecode spec being unattractive until there are already a bunch of implementations, but there won't be a bunch of implementations until people are actively using it.