Was it really?
Adobe very poorly maintained it, it had constant security issues, it was poorly coded, and was abused as an ad platform.
When Linux moved to amd64 / 64bit exes, it took them years to port it from 32bit to 64bit. Why? The codebase was a mess, and they put one dude on it, and his complaints leaked all over the place (I'm sorry it's taking me so long, but this codebase is a mess of spaghetti, I'm having to re-write the whole thing, etc)..
As with everything Adobe buys, their only goal was to ride it into the ground. It is a testament to how popular flash was, that they even updated it at all, ever!
Apple/Jobs may have had fiscal reasons for this move, but it was a great benefit for all regardless.
Also, mad respect to the developers at http://ruffle.rs, who are having to do it _again_! Maybe they have a chance to implement the Flash runtime cleanly.
