[thelist] Please tell me why I hate Flash

[Joel D Canfield]

I guess it comes from being the middle brother for 40 years, but aren't some
of us being a bit bombastic when there are two different arguments going on
here? Flash is generally not my choice for information architecture,
navigation, or other jakobian issues. That doesn't mean that is has no place
on the web.

How many of you really remember the superbowl? Not me, and I'm pretty sure I
was conscious thru most of it. But I sure remember some of those
commercials. They're generally not long on information, but they get your
attention and make you remember them.

Why do you think they called it 'Flash'? The web isn't just about
information, it's more and more about marketing. Marketing, since day one,
has attempted to provide more entertainment than information. Flash will
continue to be used (often poorly) to 'entertain' folks into buying. If you
can't/don't/won't download the latest version, there's a good chance you're
not their target market, which means that, frankly, scallop, they don't give
a clam about you.

I HATE commercials as a general rule. I usually dislike sites that depend on
Flash. My automatic response to both is to move on to something else. That
doesn't make either commercials or Flash inherently evil (or inherently
good, if you're mad at me.) It's subjective, like nearly everything else.
Unless, of course, you need information from that Flash-filled site; but
then, there's still little value in railing against Flash. YOU came to THEM,
remember? If it's their info they can serve it any way they like. And if
their method of delivery is unpalatable to you, move on.

joel at spinhead.com

-----Original Message-----
From: thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of Erik Mattheis
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2001 6:27 PM
To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
Subject: Re: [thelist] Please tell me why I hate Flash


The rest of this is to farcical to respond to, but I am too evil to
let this slip under the radar:

At 7:45 AM -0400 4/22/01, deke wrote:
>  > Here is some interesting info:
>>  http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/
>
>That page says there are 340,603,938 worldwide users of Flash
>multimedia player, which is 80 million more people than are online.
>
>http://cyberatlas.internet.com/big_picture/geographics/article/0,1323,5911_
151151,00.html

Ringmaster: "Deke! Assuming there are 374 million web users and 340
million of them have the Flash Player, how many DON'T have the Flash
Player?"

[drum roll as Deke presses his tongue to one side of his mouth and
drools out the other]

Deke: "Negative 80 million! That's my final answer!" ...

It's beyond me why someone who cares so little for Flash would make
so much noise about it. I read that the Luddites did stuff like lay
down on railroad tracks to try to stop the trains ... maybe this is
similar.

"Choo-choo"

--
- Erik Mattheis

http://gozz.com/
(612) 827 3963