The browser now handles tooltips natively. The Popover API, shipping with broad browser support today, lets you wire a tooltip with two HTML attributes: popovertarget on the trigger and popover="manual" plus role="tooltip" on the content element. No JavaScript event listeners. No ARIA state management. No custom Escape key handlers.
The article is worth reading for what it documents disappearing, not just what appears. The author rebuilt a real production tooltip and tracked three specific collapses in complexity: global keydown handlers gone, Lighthouse ARIA warnings gone, and manual focus restoration code gone. The before-and-after is in the codebase diff, not a benchmark.
Tooltip libraries are not dead. The author says they still make sense for complex design systems and legacy constraints. But the default has shifted. The Popover API makes the simplest implementation the most correct one, which has not been true before now. Browser support caveats exist and Caniuse is worth checking before shipping.
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