I'd rather ask why Google didn't make vp8 defacto on youtube instead of adopting h.264, let the Apple mobile devices flounder without support, and push really hard on Android manufacturers to hardware accelerate vp8 (or 9 now). They could have taken over the online video market, and gotten webm as the video tag standard easily. Instead the last 5 years played out in a battle of attrition because nobody actually uses webm media excusively the way big media uses h264.
YouTube is a profit center for Google, VP8 is a delivery mechanism for YouTube. Google has already taken over the online video market with their purchase of YouTube, I doubt that sacrificing YouTube for a bigger share of the codec pie is really worth it to Google.
Instead they can play the long game. VP8 support can make its way into browsers and hardware, and by funding alternative codecs (increasing supply) they can keep the licensing costs for H.264 and its successors down. It's easy to speculate that if H.264 were the only game in town it would probably be more expensive.
I don't know what you mean by "battle of attrition". Current state of affairs is that we have some good, free codecs; some better, inexpensive codecs; and improvements are on the horizon in licensing, software support, hardware acceleration, and codec sophistication.
> they can keep the licensing costs for H.264 and its successors down. It's easy to speculate that if H.264 were the only game in town it would probably be more expensive
That isn't even a very speculative speculation. The release of Vorbis triggered clear drops in the MP3 licensing costs— at a time when there seemed to be no other reason to drop the prices.
Strategically, one major methods of success for royalty free codecs is simply to keep driving the— otherwise monopoly-class— profits out of the non-free codec space. They don't have to be the #1 choice to achieve this, just enough of a threat with enough installed base that the marginal cost of switching is kept low enough to present a real ceiling on the price of the non-free stuff. (Though the wider the adoption and the more competitive the harder and lower the price ceiling it creates)
Especially once you factor in all the disadvantages royalty bearing codecs have: Overheads from profit motivated engineering decisions, the need to constantly cannibalize the last generations revenue stream to keep the installed base on the 20-year patent expiration hamster wheel, the non-trivial base of users that just want something that works and is easy to integrate who don't like having to apply and pay for licenses and track and report usage quantities, etc… it's pretty clear that the RF side will eventually win this fight so long as they keep cracking away at it.
The only real question is how long and how many billions extra will the public pay before we get to that eventual outcome.
Apple and Microsoft were never going to allow vp8 in the html spec. What Google should have done is press vp8 more on the web and not left Mozilla floating in the breeze.
However, Google only purchased on2 in 2010, and hardware support has actually spread remarkably quickly for that amount of time, probably because they've been pushing it on Android. A bunch of current devices support hardware vp8 encode and decode and, in a year or so, it will likely be difficult to buy an android device without support.
IMHO, the main purpose of VP8 was as a bargaining chip to prevent MPEG LA from doing anything particularly onerous with their licensing. Seems to have worked.
>I'd rather ask why Google didn't make vp8 defacto on youtube instead of adopting h.264, let the Apple mobile devices flounder without support, and push really hard on Android manufacturers to hardware accelerate vp8 (or 9 now).
Google makes money on ads. Including on YouTube.
Now, Android doesn't make Google any money. It's a long term bet to have a foot on the mobile space. Including the Motorola acquisition --and giving it for free--, Google has most likely LOST money on Android thus far.
Plus, Android doesn't have much presence in the mobile web. Despite outnumbering iOS devices, Android devices produce far less mobile web visits. Probably because lots of them are sold to the lowest consumer tier, free with a contract, that is, to people that don't care about the "mobile web" thing much at all.
So, Google pushing VP8 on YouTube / mobile would just serve to cut Google from the mobile advertising pie, which is largely iOS.
And it's not like Apple, if pushed, couldn't have added some basic flash player capability, even if only for video support. Adobe, for one, would have jumped at the chance to give it to iOS.
