Ask HN: Why do browsers fetch images from other sites but don't fetch text

[dgudkov]

Wouldn't web development be much easier if browsers could fetch pieces of text from other sites the same way as HTML tag <img> does now. Using, for instance, CSS selectors. E.g.:

<text src="http://remote.site.com" selector="div#post123" />

[rman666]

We probably would have figured out solutions to cross-site-scripting (XSS) a lot sooner, that's for sure!

[winestock]

Good point. Orthogonal. However, copy & paste isn't that hard. Additionally, one would be at the mercy of whatever changes would occur at the source. You may want that; or not.