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Most of it comes down to an integrated and cohesive development/creative experience for the content author. The current tooling provides such a level of frictio

Most of it comes down to an integrated and cohesive development/creative experience for the content author. The current tooling provides such a level of friction that people aren’t experimenting and pushing boundaries of web content like they did when Flash was popular. I typically work for creative digital agencies, and every single project requires so much tool/framework/library exploration now. Back in the day, you would always just use Flash, and you got the project done really fast. Everything takes so much longer now, and it’s because of tool fragmentation, or just plain lack of tools. If I ask the question, “what animation tool should I use for animated web content”, there just isn’t a good answer. Back in the day, you would just use Flash.

shkkmo 5y ago
> Back in the day, you would just use Flash. And back in the day, I would close your site as soon as it opened if it started loading a flash animation. Using flash for a website animation was never a good choice, at least not for the end user. I am perfectly happy to have a higher bar for rich web content if it means a less user hostile web than we had when flash was everywhere. If we really need a more integrated and cohesive experience for content authors, then go out and make it. The fact that one doesn't exist may indicate that there isn't a cohesive demand for such a tool.
- JoeyJoJoJr 5y ago
  Flash was used for a massive variety of use-cases: Digital signage, touch screen kiosks, eLearning experiences, games, web animation, etc. No one is just gonna go out and build a new Flash along with its ecosystem. I used web animation as one obvious example, but the reality is that there is an extreme lacking of cohesion when you look at just about any part of developing for the web. The ecosystem is currently such a slippery foundation that creation of an authoring tool with the scope of Flash is basically impossible to achieve.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    > The ecosystem is currently such a slippery foundation that creation of an authoring tool with the scope of Flash is basically impossible to achieve. I would say that the scale, scope and complexity of that ecosystem outgrew the ability of one or even a few tools to satisfy it. The idea that flash was ever going to survive as the one tool for interactive content, videos, games, animation and more is simply silly.
    - JoeyJoJoJr 5y ago
      It’s not silly at all. I’m not talking about Flash competing with Unity, Unreal, and every other web app. I’m saying there is a desperate need for something that just does what Flash did circa 2007. HTML5 was meant to do that (that was the promise) and still it doesn’t. The old Flash guys aren’t harping on about it just because of nostalgia, but because it has become much more difficult and expensive to produce the kinds of content that Flash excelled at in 2007.
      - shkkmo 5y ago
        If there's a market for tooling to go make that content, then go make that tooling. I think that market is actually pretty small since most of the use cases that flash was filling are better served by the varieties of tech that exist today.
- rchaud 5y ago
  > Using flash for a website animation was never a good choice, at least not for the end user. And yet Flash persisted across the web, until a giant like Apple decided to de-platform them in favor of its own lock-in solution. Consumers for the most part have no idea what tech lies under the hood for the websites they visit.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    > And yet Flash persisted across the web, until a giant like Apple decided to de-platform them in favor of its own lock-in solution. Flash was a proprietary technology that bootstrapped the early web but was doomed due to a combination of ongoing security issues (which pushed browsers to move it to a plugin and disable autoplay) and poor support for emerging platforms. > Consumers for the most part have no idea what tech lies under the hood for the websites they visit. The vast majority of of the tools and languages that lie under the hood for websites, especially on the frontend, is built on open source tech. There are plenty of shady things that Apple has done, but it is ridiculous to blame Apple for single handedly taking down a doomed technology. This is an example of Apple's prescient side, not it's nefarious side.

shkkmo 5y ago

> Back in the day, you would just use Flash. And back in the day, I would close your site as soon as it opened if it started loading a flash animation. Using flash for a website animation was never a good choice, at least not for the end user. I am perfectly happy to have a higher bar for rich web content if it means a less user hostile web than we had when flash was everywhere. If we really need a more integrated and cohesive experience for content authors, then go out and make it. The fact that one doesn't exist may indicate that there isn't a cohesive demand for such a tool.

JoeyJoJoJr 5y ago
Flash was used for a massive variety of use-cases: Digital signage, touch screen kiosks, eLearning experiences, games, web animation, etc. No one is just gonna go out and build a new Flash along with its ecosystem. I used web animation as one obvious example, but the reality is that there is an extreme lacking of cohesion when you look at just about any part of developing for the web. The ecosystem is currently such a slippery foundation that creation of an authoring tool with the scope of Flash is basically impossible to achieve.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  > The ecosystem is currently such a slippery foundation that creation of an authoring tool with the scope of Flash is basically impossible to achieve. I would say that the scale, scope and complexity of that ecosystem outgrew the ability of one or even a few tools to satisfy it. The idea that flash was ever going to survive as the one tool for interactive content, videos, games, animation and more is simply silly.
  - JoeyJoJoJr 5y ago
    It’s not silly at all. I’m not talking about Flash competing with Unity, Unreal, and every other web app. I’m saying there is a desperate need for something that just does what Flash did circa 2007. HTML5 was meant to do that (that was the promise) and still it doesn’t. The old Flash guys aren’t harping on about it just because of nostalgia, but because it has become much more difficult and expensive to produce the kinds of content that Flash excelled at in 2007.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      If there's a market for tooling to go make that content, then go make that tooling. I think that market is actually pretty small since most of the use cases that flash was filling are better served by the varieties of tech that exist today.
rchaud 5y ago
> Using flash for a website animation was never a good choice, at least not for the end user. And yet Flash persisted across the web, until a giant like Apple decided to de-platform them in favor of its own lock-in solution. Consumers for the most part have no idea what tech lies under the hood for the websites they visit.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  > And yet Flash persisted across the web, until a giant like Apple decided to de-platform them in favor of its own lock-in solution. Flash was a proprietary technology that bootstrapped the early web but was doomed due to a combination of ongoing security issues (which pushed browsers to move it to a plugin and disable autoplay) and poor support for emerging platforms. > Consumers for the most part have no idea what tech lies under the hood for the websites they visit. The vast majority of of the tools and languages that lie under the hood for websites, especially on the frontend, is built on open source tech. There are plenty of shady things that Apple has done, but it is ridiculous to blame Apple for single handedly taking down a doomed technology. This is an example of Apple's prescient side, not it's nefarious side.