Well, first, because in the case of AV1, a self claimed patent free Video Codec is not, and never was, patent free. ( They stopped claiming to be one since around 2019 ).
Second, the AV1 is evil or evil Google ( I dont think they said it but you could argue they do implied that ) you were referring to is very recent. To the point it was this month on HN. But yes, it has grown, quite a bit in the past year or so.
Third, because a few HN audience actually cares about quality and trade offs. One could argue VP9 being a royalty free codec is actually a better fit than AV1. And despite being so called Open, Google isn't very receptive to criticism of AV1. Whether it was the codec itself or its development model.
Had Google ( or AOM ) actually worked on AV2 [1] with all these in mind, may be there wouldn't be as much backlash.
[1] AV2 was originally promised to be out by 2020.
Regarding patents: my understanding is that AV1, like VP9 but unlike H.265, is unencumbered by patents, and you can use AV1 in products and FOSS projects without paying a license/royalties. Is this incorrect? If so, why has nobody updated Wikipedia? They still list AV1 as a royalty-free codec. If it truly is just as parent encumbered as H.265 then I agree with all the criticism, and our best bet is to stick with the very first version of H.264 (whose parents will expire next year) and JPEG. Because surely any patents which apply to AV1 also apply to its predecessors VP8 and VP9.
Well first AV1, is practically 90% VP10, On2 hence Google. Second Those companies didn't contribute to AV1 development. They are merely supporting it.
>unencumbered by patents
unencumbered by patents is not patent free. Which is what confuse a lot of people. ( I guess, or I hope ). Google has lots of patents on AV1. Even when creators of the technique dont want it to be patented [1]. The AOM as group are there together so they dont sue each other on patents, and will sue ( cough defense ) anyone who challenge them on patents.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/inventor-says-go...