

John Nack of Adobe on Flash: Sympathy for the Devil - bensummers
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/01/sympathy_for_the_devil.html

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ZeroGravitas
Last time I checked you couldn't use Flash-based H.264 for "commercial
purposes" so their domination of web video is based on looking the other way
as people break their licence.

 _Q: What parts of the H.264 license are included when I buy Adobe Products?

A: The end user license to the Adobe Flash Player allows users to playback
H.264 content for your own non-commercial use. Commercial use of the Flash
Player to decode H.264 video may require a separate license._

quoted from here:

[http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flash_Player:9:Update:H...](http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flash_Player:9:Update:H.264#Q:_When_does_MPEG_LA_require_payment_of_a_use_fee_or_royalty.2C_and_do_I_need_my_own_license_for_H.264_.3F)

Someone should lock these pirates up.

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bensummers
It's not just about video on the web, it's about horribly inaccessible web
sites which use Flash for no apparent reason. At least it's easy to block,
which removes the worst of distracting online adverts.

So it's useful they made video work, but they haven't made rich media web
sites work very well. Things like accessibility and text extraction for search
engines have been recent afterthoughts.

But the fact that people put significant effort into blocking your product
isn't a good sign, is it? <http://rentzsch.github.com/clicktoflash/>

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Towle_
"But let's also be honest and say that Flash is the reason we all have fast,
reliable, ubiquitous online video today. It's the reason that YouTube took off
& video consumption exploded four years ago. It's the reason we have Hulu,
Vimeo, and all the rest. [...] Macromedia was the only company that delivered
_truly ubiquitous_ (99% penetration) video playback."

"truly ubiquitous":
[http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/vers...](http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html)

I don't know where to find other (read: relevant) statistics on this topic, so
if anyone else does, that'd be great to have here.

Because you can't damn well claim Flash's ubiquity to be _the reason_ for all
these several-years-old occurrences and then cite penetration statistics from
_2009_ as your evidence. In fact, in the absence of telling data, I'm inclined
to believe YouTube taking off is more _the reason_ for Flash's ubiquity than
the other way around. But that's just a hunch-- a hunch perhaps supported by
this later snippet: "[M]ore than three quarters of online video now streams in
Flash formats (up from 25% three years ago)."

Additionally, it's simply illogical to claim that "[w]ithout [Flash], we'd all
still be bumbling along" when the only evidence provided for said claim is
ubiquity, regardless of whether Flash was anywhere near as ubiquitous as Nack
leads his readers to believe.

Hypothetical scenario: Flash never existed. Now what? No other video standard
would've achieved ubiquity in its place? Why is _that_ conclusion so certainly
the case? We're not talking about static technologies with substantive and
unalterable differences between them. We're talking about dynamic technologies
capable of changing and improving any measure of quality relatively quickly,
if need be. What am I to believe next? That if the English had never survived
the Middle Ages (let's say the would-be King Arthur had a sore arm one fateful
day) then the world today, with absolute certainty, _would not_ have a global
language/ _lingua franca_ at all? French, Spanish, Chinese, et al. could never
have done it in time for me to sit on my computer in the 21st century? That
we'd all "still be bumbling along"? C'mon, Nack.

~~~
jdowdell
If you want older stats, here they are:
[http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.macromedia.com/software/pla...](http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html)

