Flash Player (and the SWF format it was created for) was great for all kinds of animated, interactive, and rich media. Everything seemed possible, almost no idea was too crazy to produce. All you could think of, could be created with Flash.

Back in those days HTML (versions 3, 4 and DHTML) was still very weak (not to say totally incompetent) in the field of rich media. Java was difficult and not fit for funny things like media, and JavaScripts had a zillion of compatibility problems, due to the browser wars. And no one believed or dared to trust in Microsoft's SilverLight...

David Jumeau also describes and explains this dominance in his answer.

Oleg Sidorenko adds to that (in a comment): "This is a competition against the standard". Which is exactly the problem. Flash was extremely popular, but always a plug-in, an add-on – never a true (web) standard. That's why Adobe decided to try winning the battle by changing the play field...

In this turmoil of messy media and failing technologies, Adobe tried to let Flash evolve into a (proprietary) standard for all web content (SWF), that reduced HTTP/HTML and the browser to just the horse and carriage. Connections with data-resources and queries were also introduced (FLEX), and Adobe's greater ambition was to let Flash even become an operating system, or at least a system wide supported platform (AIR). They tried everything to conquer and 'own' the new world of digital media, and be able to control and thrive on its development.

To good to be true ?
Any better alternatives ?
Nope. In 2010 Apple indirectly axed Flash by cancelling support for browser extensions in general (since iOS version 4) and Flash specifically, because of its severely flawed technologies and maintenance. Apple very rightfully kicked Adobe out of their dream state, and advised them to start supporting HTML5.

And so they did, at least partly.
Adobe did shake off their Flash tunnel vision, and embraced HTML5. But they also silently decided to gradually steer away from developing tools to produce websites, apps, rich media and interactive content. Don't get me wrong: all print media and assets for screen content like illustrations, images, animations, and videos, these are still massively produced with Adobe'sCreative Cloud tools. But Adobe holds and aspires no dominance over the area of web and app development. (Adobe XD is just a very clever prototyping tool.)

So why are their stock values soaring since the demise of Flash ?

Two words: Marketing Cloud, and one man: Shantanu Narayen (CEO)...


Oorspronkelijk geplaatst op Quora: Why Adobe Flashplayer cannot compete with other newer alternatives? Is it because we have better alternatives?"