I was there at the peak Macromedia Flash days. Shit was so fun to play around in, simple enough a 15 year old could work out how to make great animations and interactions but powerful enough to make whole games in and it was the experimentation that led to the creativity.

Kids these days have roblox to play with which looks like it's got the same type of creative tools so that experimentation is still going on in bedrooms and libraries but it's just being swamped by so much slop.