Quoted in the article from another source: I also know that whatever leverage Google uses, they still haven’t created any positive reason to distribute video i

Quoted in the article from another source: I also know that whatever leverage Google uses, they still haven’t created any positive reason to distribute video in WebM format. They haven’t created any new revenue opportunities, opened any new markets or increased the size of the pie. They’ve just made it more expensive to get your share, all in the highly ethereal pursuit of “open codec technologies.” So, if you do check your wallet, sometime soon, you’ll start to see less money in it, courtesy of Google. How very wrong. If you make it cheaper for people to consume your video, that increases the share you can charge for yourself. Cheaper not only meaning royalty free, but also easier, more flexible, available in more places, etc., all things that are helped by an open, royalty free standard. In theory that is. The thing is that licensing H.264 seems to be not much of a hurdle for non-open source appliances. At least I heard no one clamoring about outrageous license fees for that. If that leads to more or less universal spreading of H.264, then there is nothing to win from an open codec for producers or consumers, and only to loose for open source projects. Which in itself might be a good reason to try and hurdle H.264 adaptation.