[bullman]

Additional food for thought. Elsewhere, in 4.10.5.1.2 (Text (type=text))...

"If the element is mutable, its value SHOULD (emphasis mine) be editable by the user. User agents must not allow users to insert U+000A LINE FEED (LF) or U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) characters into the element's value."

https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/input.html

So, according to this spec, the UA is allowed to make an input field type=text non-editable if it so chooses.

Would you argue that this is another place where Chrome would be allowed to act in a manner differently than expected, because "SHOULD" was used?

[jefftk]

If a browser offered a user a way to edit immutable fields, or blocked users from editing mutable fields, the discussion should be "is whatever reason they're doing this for strong enough to outweigh the presumption that following the web developer's request is the right thing to do". Not "the spec prohibits it, no matter how good your reason may be".

For example, you can use the browser's devtools to edit an immutable field, because "allowing someone to develop the site" is a strong enough reason.