This might be an oversimplification, but as a consumer, I think I see a catch-22 for new codecs. Companies need a big incentive to invest in them, which means the codec has to be technically superior and safe from hidden patent claims. But the only way to know if it's safe is for it to be widely used for a long time. Of course, it can't get widely used without company support in the first place. So, while everyone waits, the technology is no longer superior, and the whole thing fizzles out.

Jxl has been around for years.

Av1 for 7

The problem is every platform wants to force their own codec, and get earn royalties from the rest of the world.

They literally sabotaging it. Jxl support even got removed from chrome.

Investment in adopting in software is next to 0.

In hardware it’s a different story, and I’m not sure to what extent which codec can be properly accelerated

Companies only need a big incentive to invest in new codecs because creating a codec that has a simple incremental improvement would violate existing patents.

Yes, because mpeg got there first, and now their dominance is baked into silicon with hardware acceleration. It's starting to change at last but we have a long way to go. That way would be a lot easier if their patent portfolio just died.

Because every codec has 3+ different patent pools wanting rent. Each with different terms.

Not all codecs are equal, and to be honest, most are probably not optimized/suitable for today's applications, otherwise Google wouldn't have invented their own codec (which then gets adopted widely, fortunately).