It is - by far - the most efficient royalty-free video codec. That's got nothing whatever to do with YouTube.
My point about YouTube is it gives Google power. They can say “we’re doing this with billions of hours of video” and people must follow. They can demand chips that encode faster. Or decode faster. Or say “No YouTube app on your custom gizmo device without VP1 support.”
They have the power to force changes in the market the way a startup or even Microsoft don’t. Those two would have to convince people the change is worth it to everyone. Google just does it, and others follow because it’s now there.
I’m basically arguing Google abused their position as opposed to Apple.
…but that doesn’t mean Google doesn’t also abuse their position.
Billion dollar corporations are not our friends, and the only interest they have is about what’s in our wallets.
Now that's abusing market position.
Timeline:
VP8: 2010
VP9: 2013
Google: we're going to slow down the release of new codecs to once every 18 months
VP10 became AV1: 2015
For some reason they've stopped, but I wouldn't put it past them to continue with fire and motion again.
edit: Oh, you said royalty-free. Fair I guess? I guess I'd be pretty annoyed if I decided to encode some personal project I ended up making money from with my M1's HEVC encoder and got dinged by royalty police.
The codec patent is insane, you’re right. Pay to encode, pay to decode. Everybody pays.