[51Cards]

The battery argument is just silly. Playing HD movies on a phone will suck battery faster but we don't remove the user's ability to do that.

As for the others, I use Flash frequently on my phone and none of them have occurred for me in the last year or so. I have Flash set to load on demand. It's not about Flash being the future (it's not), or even continued development in it. It's about access to existing content here and now and for some users that is a continued need.

Edit: One quick edit since HN doesn't seem to want to let me reply to the below. I think the crux of it is that it removes the option to access content... key word option. If it's not the default, etc, that's fine... but you're placing the disadvantages of Flash over my ability to get to content I feel is important. The "no Flash for you" argument hinges on saying "our opinion that Flash is bad is more important than your opinion that you want to see the content you desire, even if it's not available in other formats". And for the users like myself that like to retain that option, we feel very strongly the other way.

[ceejayoz]

> The battery argument is just silly. Playing HD movies on a phone will suck battery faster but we don't remove the user's ability to do that.

If you could watch HD movies in a different way that didn't use as much battery, we would. Much of the stuff Flash does doesn't need to suck down the battery life of a phone if done in HTML5.

[talmand]

I agree, most of the arguments from individuals I've seen against Flash are simply, "I don't like it therefore I want to stop others from using it".

I find it interesting that one of the leading arguments against Flash is that it's a proprietary plugin that is not "open". So clearly the solution to this is to close off the option of using it, doesn't seem like a very "open" attitude. I thought it was about choice but I guess it was wrong.

[gurkendoktor]

> So clearly the solution to this is to close off the option of using it

Apple did not secretly turn off a global flag "allowFlash = NO;" - they did not put work into supporting it. These are completely different things.

[talmand]

If you are referring to them not allowing the plugin to work inside their browser for iOS then I agree, it is different. I have no problem with that choice that they made, it's their system. But, it was possible to build apps for iOS that used Flash development tools and Apple directly put a stop to it. Therefore, they did put some work into that aspect even though all it amounted to was changing the EULA and banning apps from the app store. In my opinion that was an effort to prevent development tools they did not control from entering their market; that's not an "open" attitude.

But, anyway, I wasn't referring to Apple in my comment. I was referring to individuals who present the argument I described; people who are all for "open" as long as it involves software they want you to use.

[veemjeem]

disagree. flash is often used for other content that may equally suck battery just as badly. Sometimes when I visit techcrunch on my laptop, one of the badly written flash ads causes my processor fan to crank on... when I close the tab the problem goes away. How does one explain that?

[seanalltogether]

and when that becomes an html5 ad in the future, it will do the same or worse

[firat]

The problem is I watch the movies when I want to watch them. Flash is embedded in random. You can always have click-to-flash solutions but those are usually buggy and there are other solid arguments in the list.