I'm part of that forgotten industry, since Flash 3. I can tell you that Steve Job letter hurt a lot the industry but I don't believe destroyed the creativity. We're more focused on clicks than interactions in the industry today.
Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era
41–50 of 441 posts
Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there really a way to do DRM that doesn't involve proprietary pieces somewhere along the way? I think the modern browser is technologically superior to what and how Flash did things (with the exception of native sockets, which is probably for the better). It's really everyone using Adobe's content creation tools (which were well integrated/designed) that made things so low friction. It took a long time for the bro…
Do you think we really need DRM, though? I've been using the web without it for a while, and I just boycott sites or services that require it. More to the point, I think that the current DRM scheme is inherently and completely broken. I could use it and let websites pretend it's useful, but it's not worth the increased quantity of proprietary code to me.
I don't like DRM myself but there are a very large number of users that like to use services which wouldn't stream content otherwise. Just like any protection mechanism it doesn't have to be perfectly impossible to break to provide value to someone.
The nice thing about the way EME was implemented is if you aren't one of those users you can simply disable Widevine or (if you prefer to not even have proprietary code on your computer) use a build that doesn't include it.
Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era
#43I think Flash has been unfairly maligned. I agree that its era is over. But the functionality it provided, at the time it was available, paved the way for a lot of good features on the Web, including YouTube and many interactive websites that work more like applications--now of course implemented in HTML and JavaScript/WebAssembly.
Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era
#44[deleted]
Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era
#45I had a formative experience with Flash as a middle schooler. I loved Albino Blacksheep, Newgrounds, etc. I thought the videos were hilarious and the stick-figure-style animation was approachable. So I acquired Flash, and I was blown away by how easy it was to create these silly animations. Automatic tweening was a miracle to me. Since then I've done a lot of video editing with different tools, but I still think back…
https://www.anim8.io might spark your imagination again.
Lots of animators are still making indy animation, it's just been drowned out on the major platforms due to how time consuming it is to create and it's basically not possible to monetize well outside of Anim8 now (YouTube algorithm favors frequent uploads and high video duration - not compatible with animation).
Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era
#46There is tons of things going on on YouTube these days.
Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era
#47I really think from a business perspective Adobe bungled just about everything with Flash.
When the tide was turning against them with the rise of iOS, they should have full open sourced Flash player and made the authoring tools free to use, and encourage competing authoring tools.
Flash would likely have then been on a track towards full standardization and native support in browsers. Adobe's authoring tools would likely be best-of-breed and indispensable for high end web dev. All the security and performance and interoperability problems could have been solved over time. Flash is not all that different from an SVG to be honest.
One counterpoint to make: Flash sites were to my knowledge static layouts, the very opposite of responsive design. That is a big industry shift that Flash never made.
Instead Adobe threw in the towel and encouraged breaking a large portion of the old internet by deprecating it.
I think moves like these amount to hundred billion dollar drags on the economy. In a sense we're all a little bit poorer as a result. It's like digging a hole and filling it back up again. It's economic activity that benefits no-one.
Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era
#48Removing Flash from the web was done with good intentions. It was a propitiatory system plagued with security holes. Instead of replacing it with similarly capable open standards, we've got a propitiatory Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), flaky HTML5 calls that differ between browsers, and webassembly. It's a shame that HTML5 never really reached the ability of flash. And it's also a shame that Adobe didn't simply re…
This comment is pretty misleading. The parts you complain about have little to do with what made Flash a creative sandbox. The parts that do matter have long been replaced with Canvas/WebGL. But the web as a whole has changed. Just like we don't have as many fun quirky geocities-like websites. The issue isn't the lack of Flash, it's that the web as a whole has grown up and changed.
Canvas/WebGL may replace Flash to end users. I'm not aware of creator tools that allow people to put things together as easily as they could using Flash.
Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era
#49I had a formative experience with Flash as a middle schooler. I loved Albino Blacksheep, Newgrounds, etc. I thought the videos were hilarious and the stick-figure-style animation was approachable. So I acquired Flash, and I was blown away by how easy it was to create these silly animations. Automatic tweening was a miracle to me. Since then I've done a lot of video editing with different tools, but I still think back…
Disclaimer: I'm an old git.
I think you have deftly described a bigger problem, as the whole industry gets more and more sophisticated and complex. The barrier for entry is so high now that I think it stifles young people's interest too quickly.
The great thing about Flash was the developer tool. Part animation studio, part simple programming IDE. It was a great balance.
Maybe there is a place in the market for framework to implement a flash-a-like in a HTML5 Canvas?
Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era
#50Removing Flash from the web was done with good intentions. It was a propitiatory system plagued with security holes. Instead of replacing it with similarly capable open standards, we've got a propitiatory Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), flaky HTML5 calls that differ between browsers, and webassembly. It's a shame that HTML5 never really reached the ability of flash. And it's also a shame that Adobe didn't simply re…
What can flash do that modern browsers can't?
Nothing, of course. Anything that could be done with Flash in its heyday can be done better (in several senses) with modern tools.
But that’s not what we’re talking about, is it? We can ask what’s actually being done in web design these days… and who’s doing it. If you’re old enough to remember the period from the late ’90s to the mid aughts, think about your friends who were putting all kinds of wacky, creative pages on the web. Picture that personality type. What place does it have in the universe of websites that we visit today?
The answer, as far as I’ve seen: user. We spend time on a smaller number of sites/platforms. The design of those sites tends to be (at its best) streamlined and optimized. And people who want to share their creativity are given little frames within that structure.
Even personal websites are usually built through WordPress, Squarespace, or similar. Something has been lost. I’m not going to say things are worse nowadays. That would be too sweeping a judgment, even if I substantially agreed with it, and I think I don’t. But I get this weird feeling when I spend time online, like it’s a tree that died some time ago, but it’s being reinforced, made to stand straighter than ever, given artificial leaves that never turn, etc.