It's interesting that Apple-centric folks think H.264 is popular because of them, when in reality the major, basically only, reason it's used on the web is because of Adobe Flash, which of course they have all been trained to hate. This leads to many strange opinions, including the one discussed here.

So globally, in a couple of months when Google turns off H.264 in Chrome the HTML5 support for H.264 will stand at 5% (yes, that's not a typo) including all mobile browsing i.e. iOS which contributes less than a percent. Even in the US where Apple is strongest it only reaches 10%. Meanwhile in Europe WebM in HTML5 after Firefox 4 is released will be up at 60% (50% worldwide, 40% US).

So with numbers like 60% vs 5% why isn't WebM going to totally wipe the floor with H.264? How can people be complaining about Google ruining things and causing them so much extra work by taking away their 10% of the measly 15% share that H.264 has now? Short answer: Flash.

Flash currently delivers H.264 to 98% of the web. They've promised but not yet released VP8 support and can rapidly get it to a good 85% of the web within a year of release. What Google does with Chrome is really irrelevant in the face of that. It's more about sending a message. A message that roughly says "H.264 in HTML5 cannot work without Flash as a fallback or shiv, so a strategy to promote WebM via pushing people to Flash in the short-term is no less (or more) ridiculous". Apple's position is only tenable because of the actions of their two arch-frenemies: Adobe and, to a much lesser extent but growing as IE9 comes online, Microsoft and either or both may just see this as a chance to stick it to Apple and steal some glory for themselves.