And furthermore, content creators are going to be asking these exact same questions.
Hating Google is pretty low on my todo list.
With your logic, why should I pay money for content? So far, it seems to be impossible to prevent ripping and transcoding, so maybe the answer would be "you shouldn't".
See this highly informative and empowering video: http://xiph.org/video/vid1.shtml
And yet, we have volunteers with knowledge who are constrained by patents (I'm sure x264 guys could come up with an awesome codec, and Theora team could do much better if they weren't limited to technology they got patents for),
And we have companies willing to support development of codecs (BBC Dirac, Google) which, again, are constrained by patents.
If you read the EULAs and such on even a piece of 'professional' software like Final Cut Studio or Avid, it'll describe how the encoder is only licensed for personal use and that someone else in your distribution chain needs a different contractual arrangement with them, along with whoever's on the playback end.