The pi includes h264 and mpeg4 decoding support. You only have to pay to activate the VC-1 and mpeg2 codecs. But, I don't see why you are blaming broadcom and raspberry pi for this, the cost comes from the MPEG LA's license fee for using their patents related to the video codecs. I guess you are saying broadcom or raspberry pi or someone else should have paid the license fee for the users, instead of having the users pay the cost themselves? They did that for h264, which is probably the most needed codec.