Standards bodies rarely enforce rules themselves.

Is it really on the W3C to enforce standards? How would that even work?

if they had a clear test that declares a site w3c compliant or not with no wiggle room then they could work with something like the ADA or other accessibility related standards and make w3c compliance required for ADA compliance.

By shipping their own reference browser ..

In what way would that enforce standards?

Well, the same way google can enforce their standards via chrome.

(I did not say it is a realistic goal for a theoretical comitee)

The only reason Chrome can do that is because it has a huge chunk of the market. It does not work for a browser with no users.

So not at all? Shipping something in chrome isn’t enforcing a standard in my opinion. Enforcing a standard would be a regulatory thing, like having to use USB-C in certain situations.

Chrome is in a monopol position. If they decide to ship a new feature .. then all the other browsers need to implement it as well, or their users assume their browser is broken.

Okay but that's still not the same as enforcing a standard, in any way... You're suggesting the W3C should simply roll a "reference browser" that supplants Chrome so they can force standards on users themselves. That really doesn't seem like a great way to do it.

> A great idea executed horribly.

No. It's sabotage.