>They can afford a few programmers to maintain a codec.
This is a bad argument because with that money they can also afford to do almost anything. They could also add any random file format to the browser, but that increases costs to support the web for more than just Google. Meanwhile adding a polyfill to support the format is performant without adding complexity to the web.
It’s also a bad argument because it confuses market cap with “money available to invest in developing products” (not that Google isn’t swimming in dumb money for other reasons).
This is a bad argument because with that money they can also afford to do almost anything. They could also add any random file format to the browser, but that increases costs to support the web for more than just Google. Meanwhile adding a polyfill to support the format is performant without adding complexity to the web.