That Flash should be deprecated wasn't controversial (at least amongst tech savvy people). What was controversial was not supporting it at all, because doing so

That Flash should be deprecated wasn't controversial (at least amongst tech savvy people). What was controversial was not supporting it at all, because doing so locked out a lot of the web of the time. Especially certain enterprise sites but also a lot of video sites or even ordering a taxi in some cases. That said, the iPhone was in a particularly unique position to push through a change like this and force websites to adapt. iPhones were becoming popular with upper management so a website that didn't work for them was actually considered an issue worth addressing. Nowadays Chrome would also have a good chance of forcing similar changes.