HTML5 vs. Adobe, This Sunday in 5-D Space

A friend put me on to an HTML5 <canvas> tag demo that looks like Doom and doesn’t use anything even resembling flash: http://canvex.lazyilluminati.com/.

Clearly you’ll need an HTML5-ready browser if you want to play (with) it.  It’s interesting enough, especially if you’re from the generation that grew up with Doom (and Marathon, for those of you who were Mac users before it was cool).  As my friend noted, it even includes “5D space.”

What really precipitated from this sharing between gamers-cum-developers was a discussion about Adobe and their future. The gist of our tête-à-tête was the increasing capabilities of simple HTML, and the subsequent lessening of importance for Flash, as the standard grows.

The highlight:

Jonathan: “Adobe is f@%#ed. Finally the web will be free of Flash[.] it’s very clear that the iPhone/iPad not having flash is a volley in this… flash sucks, the sooner it’s gone, the better… if Adobe suddenly decides that they’re going to overlay every flash object with an ad… they could do it… and what recourse does anyone have?”

I’ll save my judgment about the iPhone and iPad—though it is telling that the <canvas> element was originally developed by Apple, though maybe not as a Flash-killer, per se—but I had been relatively unmoved by the argument that Flash should go away (one that my friend has upheld for quite some time) until he made the point about Adobe being the sole gatekeeper to so much content on the web.  I have my complaints about Flash, the vast majority of which revolve around its complicated interweaving of demi-object-oriented code and GUI-based animating, but I don’t particularly want it to die a terrible death.  In fact, AS3 has all but done away with most of my development-related complaints. That said, I also don’t want ads being placed on content that I’ve developed for clients.  It may be my own relative ignorance, or it might actually be a true gray area, but it seems to me there’s no particular standard for that type of thing.  As Mitch pointed out recently, it seems like every time YouTube releases a new privacy statement, it’s less privacy and more statement.  But at least there is a statement—you have to go past it to even put your content on their site.  And it is on their site, so… it kind of makes sense.  Where does something like Adobe player fall in the scheme of things. It is their player.  Yeah, I know for sure that I don’t know.

So my initial thought was one of complete rebellion: “yeah, $#@% Adobe, HTML5 for life!”  After discussing it at lunch with Mitch and Patrick, though, we hit upon the idea that it’s a two-way street. Sure, HTML5 gaining momentum would mean less of a, let’s say, market share for Adobe.  Conversely, though, it also means that Adobe will have to be competitive and, presumably, not throw ad overlays on their player. To be fair, that probably wouldn’t really have worked well for them anyway, though it is a compelling example.  There are, however, plenty of more insidious things they could be (and probably are) doing.

Anyway, this was all brought up at lunch at the tail end of a discussion I started by telling a short story about my experience with Netflix.  TL;DR I went to cancel my subscription, discovered (at Netflix’s insistence) that I could put it “on hold” instead, and did so.  This choice resulted from the fact that I’d been watching things and playing games mostly through my PC and wasn’t using Netflix so much.  This, in turn, caused me to realize that, as distribution channels multiply and companies pop up to make use of them, where we’d really come down to just a few streams not so long ago—TV and VHS->LD->VCD->DVD on one side and a few video game systems on the other (most of the titles for which crossed platforms anyway)—now we had myriad streams for acquiring our “content.” A blurring of the lines between the many platforms that exist for tapping into these streams is a definite reality too. I can download video games on Steam while watching live sports on ESPN360 and buffering an on-demand movie from any number of sources.

It sure seems to me that media cyclically experiences a “bang and crunch” model with regards to delivery. Inventing, embracing, and gainsaying any new stream is as viable a passtime as trading futures these days.  And, if you think about it, doesn’t every new device seem to sell itself by trying to harness as many content streams as possible, perhaps even by combining them to help make sense in an oversaturated world?  So I guess that’s the genesis of the cycle.  I tend to like things simple, but sometimes the lure of a new stream is so strong I forget that I don’t even like most content, regardless of medium or stream or platform.  It’s a powerful thing.  Since we love analogies (and stories) around here, I guess it’s a little like me wandering around the Merchandise Mart‘s Luxe Home after giving blood recently. Everything was packaged in such a slick way that, in my lightheaded stupor, I was ready to hire a contractor on the spot without the money, space, or really desire to own any of it.