The problem with Java applets was not the use of bytecode or a VM. The problem was that it was slow to start so you looked at a grey rectangle for a long time b

The problem with Java applets was not the use of bytecode or a VM. The problem was that it was slow to start so you looked at a grey rectangle for a long time before anything happened. Flash was much snappier, which is why it won out over Java. Flash also had better development tools targeted multimedia and games.