[zelly]

WASM just makes it easier to distribute obfuscated code, because it is obfuscated by default. Pre-WASM JS is capable of just as much obfuscation.

Minified Facebook or Google trackers were never libre or meant to be easily reversed. Web apps like Google Drive aren't free either just because you can run it in a browser on Linux. You aren't supposed to (legally?) be able to modify it and nor would you be able to in many cases where they try. It's just as proprietary as Microsoft Office. There are proprietary tools to do even more advanced obfuscation on top of minification (adds red herring code paths that do nothing), which some JavaScript malware vendors use to protect their implementations.

What we really want is libre JavaScript/WASM where vendors include permissive licenses and source maps or links to download the high level source. That's free software. The "free and open" web never really existed de jure; publishers' laziness to obfuscate created a de facto free and open web. Libreness depends on access to high level source, not reverseability, or else Photoshop is free too because you can attach a debugger to it.

WASM just exposes the truth that the web was an app store all along.