And 10 years later I just don't see the level of amateur uptake that flash had.
For 10 years flash minted thousands of young animators and content creators. Since flashes death there are far fewer upstarts and communities despite Internet adoption being magnitudes higher
I really think the all-in-one-ness of Flash is what made it so easy to use. Not only that you can make almost everything for a game/cartoon in one interface (IIRC audio wasn't included), but also that the output was a single file you could share easily.
The rampant piracy of old Flash versions probably helped a lot too.
I would bet there are many more young amateur animators and content creators now than there have been 10 years ago. Their work is just more diverse than the "signature Flash animation look".
For 10 years flash minted thousands of young animators and content creators. Since flashes death there are far fewer upstarts and communities despite Internet adoption being magnitudes higher