The root domain is pronounced "goat sex," although from the earliest days I'd heard of it, people were referring to it as just "goatsie" domain name goatse.
I've definitely heard of "goat" as a noun meaning that, but "webp is such a goated format" sounds more to me like the writer thinks people try to laud it as the goat when it actually isn't. I guess it's because it sounds like the passive voice; "is goated" makes it sound like someone else is doing the goat-ing, at which point for something subjective and desired like "goat", "goating" sounds like it's being used as a more modern slang for "astroturfing" or something.
> I've definitely heard of "goat" as a noun meaning that, but "webp is such a goated format" sounds more to me like the writer thinks people try to laud it as the goat when it actually isn't.
Funnily enough the article kind of does that, doesn't it.
WebP is a decade older than "state of the art" for this, and that difference costs a significant number of bytes.
The issue for me is it looks like an accidental autocorrect of the word “goatse” which internet users from an earlier pre-Facebook era may find more familiar than the verbifying of what was an acronym that is starting to be used as the original word but in a new adjective way.
I'm continually amused that this has become such a common expression. The first time I remember hearing something similar was in Infinite Jest where one character was the P.G.O.A.T (Prettiest Girl Of All Time).