yeah proprietary formats ended up being pretty expensive. Not everybody wants to use adobe flash as the industry standard. Over at the publisher's office, a LOT of my job involves trying to make assets developed in a proprietary format like flash usable today.
HTML5 is an "Open Code" format - and thank god, it is slowly replacing Flash entirely. If you develop with HTML5, your app can work on any mobile device. And I think this is a general trend - the less proprietary and protected formats you use, the easier it is to develop. Open source, open code, creative commons, public domain... these constructs make it easier to develop ideas. They take the idea out of the individual's control and expose them to the power of the crowd. It's not about the team who invented HTML5 making any money.
The World Wide Web Consortium doesn't own html5 in the same way adobe owns flash. They don't even have a certification program! "The W3C has decided, for now, that it is not suitable to start such a program owing to the risk of creating more drawbacks for the community than benefits."
1 That says it all right there - tighter control means less access. Less access means less community.