Hey, Guys, Remember When You Used To Care About Flash?

I wanted to take a moment to pour out a little Club Mate in honor of Flash on mobile and to point out that it wasn’t two years ago that the Flash/iPhone wars were top of mind for most people. Heck, even Steve Jobs chimed in when it looked bleakest.

But, as we learned last year, mobile Flash was dead. Kaput. Deceased. No longer. Ex.

And now it’s gone forever. You can’t download it, you can’t run it on many mobile devices, and Adobe has set its sights on Air as a capable replacement for whatever Flash was good for.

And you guys are quiet?

I only bring this up because I want you guys to remember the anger we all expressed in regards to Flash and the iPhone. The results for “iPhone flash sucks” brings up countless top ten lists talking about why Flash on the iPhone would be totally amazing and why Android is much better because it supports Flash. And now, suddenly, it doesn’t matter.

Where is the outrage? Where are the flame wars? Why are there no open letters to Adobe? It’s because people have moved on and it’s actually kind of appalling to see. All that energy wasted. All that ill-placed anger. We see hundreds of comments almost daily accusing us of some sort of fanboism. We write a pro-Google post and we hate Apple. We write a pro-Apple post and we get nailed for being against Google. But you guys are going to let Flash go without a fight? Show some anger, because as I recall this used to be a big deal for you guys.

Or maybe it isn’t a big deal (and maybe it wasn’t such a big deal, then?) And maybe the tribalism you guys exhibit really isn’t that important to you, really? Maybe you really don’t care?

All I’m trying to say here is that the Internet is a big and wonderful place. Today’s heated argument is tomorrow’s burnt squib. Maybe we can all just look at technology for what it is – a continuum that aims to bring us to a bigger place – and less like a schoolyard filled with squabbling cliques.

Not to get all Beatles on you here, but the concordance you make is the concordance you take. Arguments are fine on points that matter, but in the end everything fades away.