[crowcroft]

Tailwind is just a different way of writing CSS.

UI libraries and websites all end up converging on a common set of ideas because of usability and readability, perhaps you're conflating Tailwind UI libraries with Tailwind itself. Tailwind doesn't inherently force a website to look a certain way any more than flexbox or CSS grids might.

I do agree in that if you're using Tailwind you're unlikely to be reaching deep into the full functionality of CSS for animation etc. but most websites aren't doing that whether they're using Tailwind or not.

[mpeg]

Tailwind comes with a set of colors, shadows, typography scale, paddings, etc.

Sure, you can override them, but most people don't and there is definitely a "tailwind look"