> 15 years ago there were people who said exactly the same thing about MPEG4-ASP (eg. divx/xvid). It all comes down to Moore's law and hardware acceleration.
There are always format fanboys but it really wasn't anything like that because the MPEG4-ASP experience still had problems for the average user (it wasn't a big win on file size/quality, compatibility was not a given, people still had to pay for licensed players, etc.).
In contrast, I think H.264 hit the threshold where it's good enough for the average person and you basically never hit the case where a file doesn't work for the person you shared it with because even though it's license-restricted, most operating systems and browsers include support. Moving away from that is going to be hard because most people will not see much advantage — AV1 is clearly better on file-size but most people aren't hitting limits on a regular basis and the feedback loops are often missing (e.g. you hit play in Netflix on your phone — how many people would have any way to tell how much of their data plan that used?).
There are always format fanboys but it really wasn't anything like that because the MPEG4-ASP experience still had problems for the average user (it wasn't a big win on file size/quality, compatibility was not a given, people still had to pay for licensed players, etc.).
In contrast, I think H.264 hit the threshold where it's good enough for the average person and you basically never hit the case where a file doesn't work for the person you shared it with because even though it's license-restricted, most operating systems and browsers include support. Moving away from that is going to be hard because most people will not see much advantage — AV1 is clearly better on file-size but most people aren't hitting limits on a regular basis and the feedback loops are often missing (e.g. you hit play in Netflix on your phone — how many people would have any way to tell how much of their data plan that used?).