Yeah, people will continue using that crap because it works reasonably
well. Doesn't mean I have to like it. And I fear that all replacements
for Flash will suck at least as much as Flash itself does.
The real problem is that web sites are turning into programs. A web site
used to be just formatted text, but now many sites are completely
unusable with Java Script disabled. Many even require Flash and work
only with major browsers. I guess that's what they call "evolution" (yay
Web 2.0). And of course, there will be lots of people who'll disagree
with me that it's a bad thing.
Even the video tag you mentioned is not attractive for the typical web
site designer, because they won't want to give up control over certain
aspects of the video player GUI.
I don't think the "web sites are programs" idea will go away. Maybe it
will get slightly less obnoxious as technology advances (lol advance
they call this!), but it won't go away.
Now the "grumpy old man" attitude won't bring me anywhere. That leaves
me as a user who doesn't have the Flash plugin installed (OH NO!), and
I'll just keep asking people asking to provide a useable alternative,
when they post such AJAX'ed and Flash'ed links .
(Until some time ago, I could barely play YouTube videos in the Flash
player, because it was too slow. My media player could play the same
video even at fullscreen, and it didn't even use all of my CPU. That's
why I finally uninstalled Flash.)
In fact, hiding the link to the actual video file seems to be some kind
of "soft DRM". Like all almost kinds of DRM, it's breakable, but it
requires an effort > 0. I don't want to support this.
PS: if circumventing DRM is illegal in your country, you're fucked.
Maybe for ad revenue? At least, I *think* YouTube has ads. I have
AdBlock installed, so it's hard to tell...
I don't know either...
Isn't YouTube one of these Web 2.0 sites, where nobody actually knows
yet, whether you can make money with it?
Anyway, YouTube _does_ _not_ want users to download videos. It's
probably only a question of time, until downloader tools stop working,
because it requires too much effort circumventing the soft DRM.
