I understand the energy conservation while on battery but I have seen the same with rigs connected to the wall.
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It takes a lot of power for continuous light at that brightness, and camera flashes have a lifespan, and an on-camera flash dying out would very much suck compared to an external flash. Also, bright lights will make people squint.
The scene only needs to be illuminated for the time it takes for the film (or more likely today, the digital image sensor) to be exposed, aka the “shutter speed”. In modern cameras and smartphones 1/125th or 1/250th of a second is a typical setting but many can go as fast as 1/8000th of a second or faster.
There’s just no reason to have a bright light for any longer than that, because that’s how long it takes to take the photo. In addition to the energy use concerns you’ve already mentioned, it would be blinding for anyone having their picture taken. One major benefit of the rapid flash is that the picture gets taken before anyone reacts to the flash and closes their eyes (which usually takes around 1/10 of a second).
Flashes require a significant amount of power to operate. The subject only needs to be illuminated very briefly, so it would not be necessary to have permanent lighting fixtures. Additionally, the flash is *very* bright and would make it very uncomfortable for the subject if they are looking at the flash.
The main benefit is that the flash is a portable lighting tool in situations where the photographer does not control the environment. For photo shoots in studios, for example, they can set up the lighting so as to not need the flash.
The flash only lasts a tiny amount of time and is extremely bright. As long as the shutter is open when the flash goes off, far more light will end up on the sensor from the flash than from the rest of the exposure. Flash times are just a measure of how short an exposure can the camera make while still ensuring that the flash occurs during that time.
From the point of view of the flash, it goes: shutter open, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait ,wait, … lots more waiting, wait, flash, wait, lots more waiting, shutter closed.
The following idea might help: Some venues such as sports halls are lit by strobe lights instead of continuous lighting. Suppose your lights are actually flashing 100 times a second. Humans won’t notice, and will see a continuous light. Cameras will need to be set to open the aperture for 1/100 of a second, during which time exactly one flash of each strobe will occur and so the photo will get the correct exposure.
Heat.
An lighting rig used for lighting in picture and video capture that is desinged to be continuously running is big and heavy as 99% of it is heat dissipation mechanisms and the support structure needed for such mechanisms.
Also heat resistant materals and construction makes these always on lights extremely expensive.
You can get the same brightness in an small tiny flasher but it can’t run continuously or it will literally melt itself.
Flashlights can bypass this by strobing, baisically be turning off and on so fast that while the human eye precive it to be bright, but its only really on for 1/3 of the time. But this is bad for recording video as it leaves this moving grid line effect or have timing issues with photo taking where the moment you capture can end up as the moment the light is not actually on.
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