HTML is a web technology, but video codecs are needed by a wider range of applications, including playing optical media, games, and presentation software. But

HTML is a web technology, but video codecs are needed by a wider range of applications, including playing optical media, games, and presentation software. But inside the browser it's a web technology. That's the whole point of the video tag. When a browser's raison d'être is "political" as you put it, then of course any such decision is going to have a moral component. It isn't just about short-term support -- it's about a long-term vision for what the web should be like, and more importantly shouldn't be like. H.264 isn't compatible with that vision. they are putting their political goals above the users' needs. But those goals are the users' long-term needs. The minor loss if people can't play H.264 video right now is offset by the much greater victory if the web stays free and open. I don't want my browser to include it's own unoptimized codecs, it's own half-assed OpenGL implementation, it's own font rendering code, it's own widget library, it's own PDF viewer, and it's own device drivers. Stop making ridiculous blanket statements. This is much more nuanced than that, and involves balancing the costs of including custom code with its benefits.