I held off on Windows 10 for as long as I could until Adobe, and therefore my job, required it. Now this nonsense. I hope this isn't the start of them joining on the web DRM bandwagon.
Flash was pretty significant in the web's journey to where it is today. For things like online video, it was the least pain in the ass way, in a time when the alternative was crapware plug-ins like RealPlayer, QuickTime, or Windows Media Player.
YouTube probably wouldn't have existed without Flash and FLV.
Many popular things are crappy. It is not an ideology, unless you consider the scientists who invented the WWW to be some freaks.
Flash wasn't really useful, because many people couldn't display these websites. It was the exact opposite of WWW. WWW enabled people to use hypertext and provided accessibility.
Google forcing people to use its browser or pushing companies to develop exclusively for its browsers has broad antitrust implications, especially if they are using their ad clout to push wider adoption.