"By augmenting the capabilities of HTML, Flash has been incredibly successful in its adoption, with over 85% of the top web sites containing Flash content..."
And how much of that is just ads?
And how much of that is just ads?
If there were no such thing as Flash, then the web would be different. Whether it would be better or worse is open to personal interpretation, but I don't think that your selected quote is the most egregious thing in the article.
I don't have a problem with ads, though Google is a good case of not needing Flash to make effective ads.