The thing about Flash, and I say this as one of the honour guard of people who actually LOVED animating in Flash, is Flash had been hostile to animators since the beginning. Even in the Macromedia days, they told animators who asked for quality of life improvements they were using the program wrong
Feb 4, 2026 10:46They said it was a tool for web developers and if animators happened to use it, that was their business and they weren’t going to get any encouragement or support from the company. This is because “animators” are a niche community nested inside another niche community of “artists”
There are DEFINITELY enough artists and animators out there to sustain a happy and healthy business providing specialty products and software to people within that community. What there isn’t, is a large enough consumer base to make the line go up forever for shareholders
This is why every company that makes specialized tools for particular communities starts to fall apart when they set their sights on increasing shareholder value, because that always means “find a way to make this product with specific utility appealing to people outside of that community”
They don’t care if the niche community that needs the product gets left out in the cold because the goal isn’t to provide them with the tool they need, it’s to convince a lot of other people outside that community that they need it and then cut and run when the numbers stop going up
This is why so many tools and programs and pieces of hardware and even analogue art supplies known for being First in Their Class tank when they start trying to make a cheaper product for a broader, less specific consumer rather than just continue making the quality thing they’re known for.
