And it's entirely unclear what any of these non-view-source minimal-user-agency alternatives has that's actually improved over what the web can do. There's no contentions about what about these alternatives would be an improvement, or to whom it would be an improvement.
Most of these architectures could probably be recreated on the web, if we cared to, if we thought they provided sufficient advantage. Projects like swf2js are surprisingly competent at playing Flash. But it's... just not a better medium, for users, for extension builders, or for developers. It did have some good tooling for creatives at least, but there are plenty of really good modern web tools with similar capabilities, they're just not as popular, not as important anymore, I'd argue because Flash was actually a pretty crude & raw interface builder that lacked much of the refinement, navigability, control, & capabilities we now take for granted.
> It did have some good tooling for creatives at least, but there are plenty of really good modern web tools with similar capabilities
There really aren't. Because the web can't even do animations properly. And Flash had a faster vector rendering model than SVG.
> I'd argue because Flash was actually a pretty crude & raw interface builder that lacked much of the refinement, navigability, control, & capabilities we now take for granted.
Ah yes, the refinement, navigability, control and capabilities of... what exactly do we take for granted? Where are these amazing tools that replaced flash and can be used for creatives, games, interactions...
Most of these architectures could probably be recreated on the web, if we cared to, if we thought they provided sufficient advantage. Projects like swf2js are surprisingly competent at playing Flash. But it's... just not a better medium, for users, for extension builders, or for developers. It did have some good tooling for creatives at least, but there are plenty of really good modern web tools with similar capabilities, they're just not as popular, not as important anymore, I'd argue because Flash was actually a pretty crude & raw interface builder that lacked much of the refinement, navigability, control, & capabilities we now take for granted.