The general web loved Flash for cases where you needed an application rather than a document. It wasn't appropriate for everything, and it was unfortunately very difficult to mix Flash with general HTML, but in many ways it was better than today's web for both creators and end users.
For the user, flash applets where super easy to block in general and to whitelist on pages where you wanted to use that particular flash application. Basically the same was true with Java. And for a certain extend JavaScript -- until the ugly DHTML menus arised and websites stopped to be usable without JavaScript.
Nowadays there are only two options: Either you block JavaScript --- and percieve a 1995's web view, in general --- or you let it run on your browser, having tons of programs running which you probably don't want (ads, tracking, that particular application that replaces flash).
The 1995 view is superior. It loads fast, doesn't hog CPU, never does anything unexpected, and has limited tracking capacity. I cringe whenever I browse without NoScript. If your pages can't render in my sandbox I just go somewhere more sensible.
It's superior only until you want to do something that does actually need JS - sometimes "go somewhere more sensible" isn't an option when you actually need to do something specific (e.g. buy an Amtrak ticket).
