I've been a web programmer for two years now and feel like there are just certain things you can't do "well" unless you're using flash. I've never picked up flash because I didn't have the money to pay for it. I have recently found out there are many open source alternatives such as open laszlo and flashdevelop so I'm concediring picking it up.
1) Is flash a good skill to own as a web developer? 2) Do you think flash will be more and more apart of the web in the future?
As much as this question is fundamentally unanswerable (All skills are good, If I knew what would be popular in the future, I'd be much richer than I am)...
In my opinion... I believe that Flash is not required for much of what it is used for, and I think that people are beginning to realise the power and flexibility in pure Javascript. This is helped by libraries such as jQuery, making it a piece of cake to do things that usually would have seen people calling in the Flash designers immediately.
Regarding your question part #2... I think Flash will be less and less a part of the web in the future, purely because of the internet's natural tendency towards openness and standards.
I am personally not going to have fun if we have to watch Flash/Silverlight/etc. battle it all out before everyone comes to realise this again :)
1) I think that it depends on what your ambitions are. If you want to work mostly on the frontend and making things look pretty; Flash is certainly a skill that fits in your toolbox. If, on the other hand, you are more interested in making things work on the serverside, I would not invest my time very heavily in flash. As with most things, however, it does not hurt to know a little bit about everything, since it makes it easier when integrating things.
2) I think Flash will still be around for some time, because it is already widespread. Today, most computers will have Flash installed, so if you are developing a rich browser application, flash will be the safest bet. This may change with time, however, and there are serious competition to Flash available today - such as Silverlight or Flex. Personally, I find Silverlight more appealing (I'm a .NET guy), but wouldn't use it today for a widespread application, since many users won't have the runtime installed.
There's a huge push in the Silverlight direction by Microsoft as well. I'd consider at least taking a look at it as it's not only taking off in the development community, but also in the enterprise.
I'm in web development these days and I came to the same conclusion: at one point or another things would have been much easier had I known a bit of flash (like coding my own video player that actually acts as I expect it to and publishes a decent javascript interface).
However, I've tested Open Lazslo (and loved it) but I wouldn't consider it as a typical web development tool. It gets really useful when you have to somehow emulate a desktop application from within a browser (in term of UI). So I'd put it into the corporate intranet department.
As for the future of Flash and its relationship to the web, I have no idea. But if browser vendors get back to their senses and accept cross-domain ajax request that are explicitely authorized by a server (like flash does), the only use we will have of flash is for heavyweight applications like video players and animation-heavy games.