https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/SMIL_mis... missile command clone
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/London_U... tube map
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Rolling_... rolling shutter animation
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/SMIL_mis... missile command clone
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/London_U... tube map
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Rolling_... rolling shutter animation
You could pack so much into a single binary distributable media file. Games, videos, websites, infographics, tools, chat rooms.
SWF was brilliant and it should have thrived.
IMO the fact that it belonged to Adobe was the biggest problem, if SWF had been managed by a more capable software org it could have been maintained in a way that kept it from getting banned from the internet. And remember, that's how bad it was - it got banned from the internet because it was absolutely indefensible to leave it around. SWF getting cancelled magically stopped every single family member I have from calling me with weird viruses and corruption they managed to stumble into. I saw more malicious code execution through SWF than I saw from my dumb little cousins torrenting sus ROMs and photoshop crackers. I'd rather not have it than have those problems persist.