Is it just me or does it seem like web games have fallen off compared to the previous decade?

Now, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good browser games to play here and on other sites.

But, it just feels like the "great" games that have come out in the last decade pale in comparison to the games from the previous decade.
I remember going onto newgrounds, armorgames, and kongregate; playing games that would blow any game from this decade out of the water, and what's more? They were free. There were paid games back then too, and they were 10x better than the free stuff.

But now were have the decade of the 2020s and the games that are being passed as demos, and trust me ive noticed a disturbing amount of demos lately, like to the point it seems like it'll replace normal web games in volume; those demo games are what would have been only a 2-2.5 star game in 2010s standards, and the full release is what would've passed as a 3 star full release free game back in 2010.

What I want to know is, what happened? I know flash died, but that was about 5-6 years ago, surely HTML5 and the other formats have had enough time to fill the gap left by flash. So why have the quality of games never recovered?

html5 could replace flash but I think it's a little harder to learn and definitely just kind of messed up the community around browser game development and turned it less into a hobby and more into an industry. i think the rise of adblockers also convinces more people to go on paid platforms like steam and mobile and generally just create games more for revenue than for passion, which would explain the downfall in quality overall

The barrier for entry across the board dropped hard. Which is a good thing and a bad thing. More people being able to create is good, but it also opens the doors to low effort money grabbing.

People who would have spent their time making a 10/10 Flash game in the past can now put that effort into releasing a real title on Steam for only $100. Same goes for Android ($25 to publish) and Apple ($99pa to publish). People who would have been to lazy to produce a game in the past can asset flip on Unity, and/or use AI for everything, and just throw it out there giving you all the 2 star games.

The flood of demos is a tangentially related issue. That's just people taking advantage of the platform because it's free and has less competition than Steam. It is significantly easier to get eyes on your game if you publish it on here than it getting buried in Steam.