Yes, flash websites were a bit of an anti-pattern even then (brilliant jewels like Homestarrunner.com aside) Point I didn't mention clearly enough was that sin

Yes, flash websites were a bit of an anti-pattern even then (brilliant jewels like Homestarrunner.com aside) Point I didn't mention clearly enough was that single-file-as-default was REALLY good for flash portal distribution. Made it easy for creators to share and easy for portals to ingest files, AND to "steal" them from eachother, which was something us developers actively encouraged, it's how you got your game or cartoon played/watched by millions of people.