Flash was a closed standard that required proprietary tools to produce for and had a single closed source runtime (that was buggy and had frequent severe securi

Flash was a closed standard that required proprietary tools to produce for and had a single closed source runtime (that was buggy and had frequent severe security issues.) The web platform has strikingly little in common with Flash, from the top level decisions to the bottom level details. The similarities, are purely superficial. Flash piled on features well after it's heyday. In a lot of cases, it's pretty likely that your first time experiencing some of the more advanced capabilities would be with the web platform equivalent rather than Flash Player. I never got the impression that the sole reason for adding features to the web was just to replace similar Flash functionality; even during Flash's heyday, alternatives to what it had to offer were prevalent at points. The closest I think the web platform comes to actually copying Flash was actually the SVG standard, which has some really peculiar features... Like raw sockets. I think it's hard to deny that that really is something motivated by and for the purpose of competing with Flash. However, if my recollection serves correctly, that was done by Adobe prior to acquiring Macromedia.