Last I checked, the basic player is free, and implementations exists for
all the major platforms, which would put it on par with PDF/Acrobat reader
in my book.
it doesn't run on the platform I use, and on those rare occasions
where they happen to produce a player that runs under Linux emulation
on my platform, about the time I get that player installed on my computer
is when the content-providers 'upgrade' to a later version which isn't
supported by the Linux player.
it's not even close to being on par with PDF. at least the PDF format
is publically documented (not sure about the most recent version),
with documentation of sufficient quality to allow multiple independent
implementations to exist (with free source code, no less).
and last I checked, Internet standards (and development of Internet
standards) weren't just for 'major platforms'.
Keith