[alwillis]

A significant downside to the <picture> element, and alternative image formats in general, is that when most users wanna download the image they expect an image format they already know how to work with. To most users an .avif or .webp are an annoyance because they reasonable expect most of their tools to be unable to open these

Certainly not the case with WebP, which was announced by Google 12 years ago. On a recent version of macOS, Preview, the Mac’s default image and pdf viewer can open WebP and AVIF files, making it easy for Mac users to convert to another format if they wish. Also 3rd party graphics apps have supported WebP for years now.

AVIF support isn’t as widespread yet but that will quickly change now.

BTW, the iOS defaults to saving photographs in HEIC, which the average consumer has never heard of.

[nl]

Webp support on Linux is spotty. The desktop file explorer for Gnome doesn't support it out-of-the-box for example.

[gnull]

My friend is using an old Mac laptop what can't display webp on webpages. A Mac laptop!