I get not trusting MS- they have behaved badly and earned a reputation for not playing well with others. Based on that, wide adoption of Silverlight may never come. However, I don't think that makes proprietary browser plug ins inherently bad. They exist because of the limitations of what you can do with HTML for building apps- after all, HTML is a language that was designed for displaying documents, not creating interactive applications.

Now maybe HTML5 is going to do away with all of that- I remain a bit skeptical, as I've felt for a long time (way before Silverlight ever came along) that web app development needs a clean break from HTML. But if HTML5 is all that and a bag of chips- fantastic. Even then, having alternatives promotes the drive of competition to innovate and add functionality.

My guess at the reason MS hasn't stepped up with Moonlight and gotten it working at an acceptable level is that they are realistic. No matter how good a product the provide on Linux, Linux users aren't going to use it because it's MS. It really isn't worth their time to try and grow a user base that will never accept them. Of course, this just perpetuates their windows-centric view of the world that ultimately causes the world not to trust them.

The part that drives me nuts is that MS has invested a lot of brilliant minds into developing Silverlight and it is GOOD. It's such a waste that because it has the MS name attached to it it won't thrive the way it should based on the value it can provide developers and consumers.

FWIW, I totally get not downloading a plug in to idly watch some video- I don't think this machine I'm typing on now has Silverlight installed, but if it was something I were truly interested in I wouldn't hesitate. It doesn't bother me too much that my phone doesn't support plug ins because mostly I'm not running internet apps. Rather I'm usually consuming content, which HTML does really well.