People are speculating that this is in preparation of Google introducing their own Google-controlled replacement for JPEG-XL, or pushing WebP harder. I don't know if I buy that, but the more widespread AVIF is, the less power does Google have to unilaterally develop a replacement. And it's in the other vendors' disinterest to give Google unilateral control over even more of the web.
> good, non-patent-encumbered, open image encoding standard
yet they won't be supporting it.
Whether you want to buy it or not, de-facto format on the web is JPEG and only JPEG, thanks to the historical momentum. Even webp is still expendable, because Mozilla and Microsoft hold long enough. And AVIF isn't being used anywhere, yet. So no, it isn't in other vendors' disinterest to drop support for Webp and AVIF, because JPEG would continue to be de-facto in that case.
Yes, which is why it'd be appropriate by others to remove it as a retaliation which would make JPEG continue its defacto status.
And I've repeated it again and again it is an hypothetical scenario and I'm aware we're unfortunately not the reality we're living in, so I'm not sure what you're gaining from still arguing with me. You should've read my first comment as if it's old man yelling at clouds and move on.
As a retaliation. Retaliation isn't supposed to be a good thing or move things forward. It is supposed to be a calculated action against your opponent. In this case it'd mean "if Google doesn't want to go with the industry standard replacement JPEG-XL route we won't be going with Webp or its descendant AVIF and instead and keep the JPEG-only statuesque."
I don't know how can I be more clear than that, so please I beg you to move on.
But alright, I will move on. You don't have to respond.
If I were a competitor browser vendor, I'd retaliate by removing Webp and AVIF support. But of course, who are we kidding? There are no competitors, only paint jobs and a dog on leash.