Flash & Silverlight - Possible Agenda Behind Them?

Being a web developer, I'm often presented with questions about what I prefer to use for building websites. I tend to build websites by hand using a plain old text editor. Obviously there are a lot of other tools that I use in the process of creating an entire website, but the fact that I use a text editor is sufficient information for the time being. Some of the people who ask me about my preferences often ask why I don't use Flash or similar technologies when they learn of my archaic habits. I have my personal reasons, but I recently read an article that presented many interesting thoughts concerning the potential future of Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight that make me feel all the better about my decision to not use either one.

Many website owners do not feel that they can have a truly "professional" website without having at least one thing done with Flash or Silverlight. Developers often feel that technologies such as these save them massive amounts of time and offer increased functionality. I cannot argue with either of those points in a general sense (I actually used Flash a lot, long before Adobe bought Macromedia). Tristan Nitot, founder of Mozilla Europe, discussed the possibility of these two technologies becoming a problem for web developers in the future. As it stands right now, both companies freely release their respective plug-ins for use all over the world. But what happens if the companies decide to start charging for the plug-ins? Developers already have to fork out an arm and a leg just to be able to create Flash and Silverlight content. When will the consumers be forced to pay as well?

Nitot also feels that such technologies are limiting to the open nature of the Internet. He suggests that the next version of HTML will be capable of presenting video and audio files natively, requiring the user to download no plug-ins at all. This idea in and of itself reduces the usefulness of both Flash and Silverlight tremendously, as many websites simply use Flash applications for audio or video playback (think YouTube).

If you're a web monkey like myself, this article is worth a read. It definitely opened my mind to a few of the potential problems in the future of the Internet.