zlib/gzip did not choose DEFLATE because it was the best algorithm. Rather it was, at the time, the only decent algorithm that could be implemented in a manner

zlib/gzip did not choose DEFLATE because it was the best algorithm. Rather it was, at the time, the only decent algorithm that could be implemented in a manner not covered by patents. (See the tragedy of LZW for why that was important.) We're now more than two decades later, so all the important data compression patents should have expired.