Why Don't the Big 4 Switch to Web Standards?

Good observation and several insightful comments ...

"Why don't Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, and Google attempt to code to Web Standards? (each site is missing either a DOCTYPE, character encoding, or both) Surely there must be a reason…

• Web Standards are too difficult for them to implement (impossible)
• The cost of implementing Web Standards is too high (improbable)
• They don’t understand the benefits of Web Standards (doubtful)
• They don't care about Web Standards (unlikely)
• They don't think users would react well to the change (possible)
• Many of their users don't have browsers that don't handle standards well (probable)
• It's not in the best interest of the bottom-line (likely)"

   continued ...   (Via Bokardo)