What could you do in Flash that cannot be done now in JS/CSS?
I don't understand this love for Flash that won't die. Yes, it did something usable well before JS/CSS caught up, but we're there now and well past what Flash brought us. Mainly, now things freakin searchable, and you no longer have to live in fear of what the next major vuln exposed by Flash would do to you.
Where are the browser games built with Html5 to compare with the Cambrian explosion of Flash games that everyone and their brother made circa 2000-2010?
Like all things, it's been made more difficult and the authoring tools are worse.
The developer experience is just subpar. I believe this is a big factor why there's far less amateur content today. In terms of multimedia, I was able to do more with my 512MB Windows XP on rust-prone spinning disks and Flash 8 than my 32GB SSD-based Ubuntu LTS. The former was also programmed by a highschool student; the latter, same highschool student but with a CS degree and almost a decade of industry experience.
Back then, I could rapidly prototype a small Flash project, maybe 10 scenes (is that the term then?). Today, yeah it's easy to get started but you have a project that's bit more than 3 scenes and you need to use webpack if you want any hope of keeping things organized.
Distribution-wise, Flash packaging is just superior. You can even make it an .exe to share with your friends (security be damned; that's what I did then). To distribute your HTML5 project you basically need a webserver and send your link around and hope they open it in a compatible browser (if they use a Mac with Safari, you better hope you didn't use too much cutting edge APIs). I guess today you could also use Electron, equivalent to me exporting to exe, but that's another battery that's sold separately.
Plus, animation is just loads better with a WYSIWYG editor like Flash. HTML5 is powerful but anything more than a simple motion tween and I have to pull up a pen and paper to calculate an object's movements. Though admittedly I've never looked into a visual editor for HTML5, that's if one even exists.
(Of course, something has to be said about the price too. HTML5 is basically costless. Flash...let's just say I rode on my school's license back then.)
I don't understand this love for Flash that won't die. Yes, it did something usable well before JS/CSS caught up, but we're there now and well past what Flash brought us. Mainly, now things freakin searchable, and you no longer have to live in fear of what the next major vuln exposed by Flash would do to you.