What is so evil about a Flash based website?

Question

I have the feeling that Flash-based ( or Silverlight-based) websites are generally frowned upon, except when you are creating games or multimedia-content rich applications. Why this is so?

Answer 1

Flash is infamous for its poor accessibility.

Keyboard navigation does not usually work, and Flash (up until recently) did not have search engine support.

Flash applications does not work in mobile phones and other portable devices.

Flash is not there in the iPhone!!!

Flash is controlled by a single company (Adobe) and so it is not following any well defined standards for the Internet.

The beauty of Internet lies in the fact that you can always view the source code of any website you are in. This way you can use the same programming/design techniques in your website or you can find security flaws in the web application. This is not possible in Flash. In Flash, source code is closed.

The big question is, why should you use Flash "except when you are creating games or multimedia-content rich applications"?

jtyost2 says, "I would also add that you can't directly link to any content inside of a Flash site, thus breaking one of the major factors that makes the Internet, the Internet, links."

Answer 2

1. content weight
2. usability
3. crawlability of search engine bots
4. accessibility
5. ease of use (disputable)
6. technology encumbrance (added software required to access the site)
7. security issues (needing to add software comes with issues involved with installing or running that software/player of the content)

[Edit] Why I place usability and ease of use separate is best explained in this link

Usability:

• a result – software that is usable;
• a process, also called user-centered design, for creating usable software;
• a set of techniques, such as contextual observation and usability testing, used to achieve that result; or
• a philosophy of designing to meet user needs?

Ease of use:

• Effective
• Efficient
• Engaging
• Error Tolerant
• Easy to Learn

I agree with the comments on that site, but this is all debatable...could be a good stackoverflow question: is usability and ease of use the same? IMO part of usability is ease of use and vice versa, but they are not necessarily the same.

I hope I don't enfuriate the more semantical sensitive with this edit :-)