Don't be evil?

Google famously coined the motto "Don't be evil" in 2001 to establish a kind of corporate "golden rule" that guides individual and company behavior.

While I've always revered this philosophy, I feel the need to speak up about some recent changes enacted by Google that seem to run counter to this ethos.

Flash

The topic : Adobe Flash. In one form or another, Flash has been part of the web since the early 2000's. It has changed names and hands over the years, where its role has been to push the web forward by making multi-media web experiences like games, interactive instruction, and video, practical well before HTML was ready.

Now, to be clear, Flash's time as technology of choice for interactive web content has long passed. HTML5 and related open web technologies have finally caught up enough to deliver comparable experiences in a much more thoughtful and secure way. But much of the web, some estimate ~10%, still run on Flash. Some areas such as web-based gaming are still pretty entrenched. The industry that I work in, educational publishing, is also working aggressively to get out of this technology but many still have thousands of hours of Flash content that is being replaced as quickly as it can.

Replacing Flash

Replacing Flash is the right thing to do, but it isn't as easy as Steve Jobs famously claimed in 2010. For better or worse, the Flash player gave developers a simple sandbox to write once and run anywhere. After nearly 3 years building rich interactive HTML5, I can say that a discouraging share of our effort goes to resolving defects and solving performance issues that are browser or device specific. Audio issues on IE, performance issues on Mobile Safari, etc. More than 28% of our defects and a significant portion of development effort goes towards fine tuning for individual platforms - something that was nearly 0% with Flash. Is it worth the effort? Absolutely. But the work takes time and money, which is where Google comes in.

Google and the "HTML by Default Feature"

Google decided in 2016 that it was going to begin making the use of Flash more and more restricted in an effort to protect Chrome users from what it believes are security and stability issues in Flash. The motivation for these restrictions, according to Google, is : "While Flash historically has been critical for rich media on the web, today in many cases HTML5 provides a more integrated media experience with faster load times and lower power consumption. ".

Fair enough, HTML5 is better in many ways. Where my concern comes in is the paternalistic nature of Google deciding that it should be increasingly harder to use a technology they think is inferior. Shouldn't users get to decide?

How "HTML by Default" is hurting users

My company's product is used by over 4 million US schoolchildren. Nearly three quarters of those users are on Chrome (and about a quarter are on Google's Chromebook). Google's HTML by Default (HBD) feature results in the browser telling users that Flash isn't installed at all.

What kids or teachers see is a message telling them that Flash isn't on a computer that seemed to have it yesterday. More confusing, Flash may work on one site and not another leading folks to assume your site is just broken.

The steps to overcome this warning varies by OS and how the schools manage their devices. It is often something kids can't understand (they may be K-2 kids just learning to read) or teachers can't interpret. Lots of times the teachers don't have the security privileges to fix the issue, even if they have time. And fixing the issue may only be temporary as Google keeps changing the rules.

Not Evil?

My question for Google is this : How does breaking educational software for kids who depend on it align with the "Don't be evil" motto. Isn't taking a paternalistic approach to technology evil? Should Google be deciding what technology consenting parties should run on the web? Is Flash truly so dangerous that it is better to break working software for millions of schoolchildren than to let folks continue to use it?

To be clear, myself and my team are not actively building in Flash nor do I advocate its continued use. But while those in Mountain View may think only luddites would still have Flash in their offering, the practical matter is that smaller publishers and companies who have built massive Flash assets over years or decades just can't migrate as fast as Google wants them to. And - in our case - the people getting hurt are the kids.