It's long-term good in the sense that it means your freedom to produce video that other people can play back is no longer at the convenience of others.

At present, you can do most of the things you do because the people that control the intellectual property rights are allowing you to do that at a minimal or no cost. As the GIF example demonstrates, it's not always wise to rely the charity of for-profit companies when it comes to this type of thing.

What are the chances of this being a problem in the future? I don't know. I believe it's good long-term in the same way that I believe insurance is good long-term. Taking out insurance doesn't always pay off -- in fact most of the time you'd hope it doesn't -- but that doesn't mean it's not a good thing to do.

This is to Google's benefit and, as I said in my original comment, I believe this is at the heart of John's problem with Google. Google positions its actions within a moral framework that never mentions that the actions which it takes are of financial benefit to Google. I don't disagree that Google is doing that and that it's frustrating -- only that basically every company does it.

Take for example, Apple. Apple only lets users download apps through the App Store. This is good for users because it means that users can trust the software and developers can easily charge for software and make a living from it. But Apple also does it because it's good for Apple. They make money this way on software that's sold and they can also limit apps which would otherwise compete with their own software.

Does the fact they have an ulterior motives mean that it's not good for users? I'd say no. John says no, too. Well at least he does when it's Apple. When it's Google, he seems upset by the dishonesty. I don't mind if John wants to be upset with dishonesty but I think you should make it clear why you're not upset at Apple's similar dishonesty (the reason might be because Apple doesn't frame what they do in such moral terms as Google).

You do realize you're basically arguing FUD.

Let me throw some FUD your way... equally likely (or unlikely). WebM does violate a patent in the MPEG-LA pool. At that point Google needs to rev every instance of WebM, from browser to every video encoded with WebM. MPEG-LA could go after anyone who encoded a video with WebM. And given MPEG-LA's patent pool size (which includes H264, VC-1, MPEG-2, etc...).

In contrast for H264 to violate it patent it would have to violate something not in the patent pool, and something not held by a licensor, e.g., WMV or Quicktime (as these would in good faith be in the patent pool). That list is LOT smaller. Most people think that they likely own al

And note, Google does NOT offer indemnification. If they did, and they should, that would change the equation on this FUD a fair bit.

Who offers indemnification against unexpected patent threats in their codec licenses? Expecting Google to indemnify WebM users or MPEG-LA to indemnify H264 users are equally ridiculous. It's uncountable downside with very little upside.