Flash Shrugged

Lately I've been experiencing even more HTML5 concerns, recently over the android 4.1 announcement by Adobe that they won't be supporting it.

My theory on the strategy here is that Adobe is simply following the money, and realizing that the developers actually paying for their tools are likely employed by or working on projects that are not free or ad supported.  Their projects are most likely well funded and involve some kind of subscription model that provides real value to end users that those end users are willing to pay for, be it an Appstore app, or a PC application that is membership or premium based.  Sure, they might have lost leaders, but in the end they have to charge for services or they cant continue to buy the expensive tools like Creative Suite etc.

Adobe themselves are obviously aware of this as they are offering their services in a subscription model, and those of us working in the training industry have been using this kind of model for years, and likely represent a large portion of Adobe's paying customers.  Adobe doesn't (and shouldn't) be interested in AS 3 developers who simply skim off the .swf technology and use tools like FlashDevelop or writing open source free code bases.  That community of free laborers contributing to the common good is great, and all, but they dont pay the monthly bills we all have, and we all gotta eat.

So what happens when Adobe abandons the browser?  Well its not bad news for adobe developers, it certainly isnt the death of flash. Quite the opposite actually.  Adobe is simply cutting off the free flow of support and help to freeloaders who dont pay them, and concentrating on supporting their paying customers.  Its a wise, prudent business move for adobe.  The people who SHOULD be worried are the HTML 5 nuts themselves, because they just lost a serious heavyweight that keeps users in the browser paradigm.

Browsers are entirely unnecessary.  One can use twitter, facebook, CNN, Youtube, and many others with standalone apps or desktop applications like Facebook Messenger.  If mobile is indeed a bellwether, then think about it, who uses facebook in a browser on mobile devices?  I certainly dont, I use the free facebook app.  And, I cant help but notice the URL's I launch, and the videos I watch all happen inside that app.  As the app grows, I have less and less reason to leave it on my phone.

By kicking sand in Flash's face, the HTML5 crowd has unnecessarily lost a great ally in their battle to keep the browser relevant and open.  Flash represents a HUGE amount of content, and now that the flash community has been sucker punched by the HTML5 community, they have taken their ball and gone home, and the browser is left without a ball.  The content available on the browser for Android just went way down.

So if there's little of interest on the browser, it will simply become less and less interesting for users, and less frequently used, until they are rarely opened at all.  This is already the trend on mobile devices and I see it occurring on PC's as browsers continue to fight with each other on standards and take *a geologic era in tech terms* to get to consensus on relatively insignificant feature updates.

Lots of very successful and internet based communities already exist in proprietary clients, like Steam, Games for Windows, Second Life and its various iterations, Facebook, countless apps in the Android market and Apple app stores, and if you're looking for rich online experiences, this is where the trend is going, not towards HTML.  HTML is a tired, limited technology that simply cannot evolve fast enough to keep up with consumer demand, and flash shrugging its shoulders and walking away hurts it more than it cares to understand or realize.