When you host videos with near 17 billion views you're going to want to stream those videos in as few bits as possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqZsoes

When you host videos with near 17 billion views you're going to want to stream those videos in as few bits as possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqZsoesa55w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqZsoesa55w That extra 25% becomes worth it. Nothing will become obsolete. AV1 will stick around for a long time. And YouTube still does H.264 encodes to support old devices.