Nono it's much simpler than that. The code (e.g shipping x265 decoder) is open-source and cross platform. You don't have to pay multiple time per O.S, the brows

Nono it's much simpler than that. The code (e.g shipping x265 decoder) is open-source and cross platform. You don't have to pay multiple time per O.S, the browser should be the (optional) source of the payment hence it can author every user is legal. Why can Firefox use h264 currently for free? Because Cisco pay for everyone. It's a small amount that would cost nothing (anyone could crowdfund it). H265 was shipped for free on Microsoft edge pre chromium. I suppose Microsoft paid for everybody and the real cost is less than 1 dollar per user. The browser could sync the license validity either via an account (e.g Google) which is already synchronised to the browser anyway, or via the sync mechanisms that already enable to sync history/favorites between OSes But yeah doing like Cisco, Microsoft and Apple (every safari support h265) is the easy way, it doesn't cost them more than a few millions, which is usually allocated in vaporware anyways (fuschia I'm looking at you)