Really? That's your argument? If that's your argument an equally valid one is you get what you pay for. ;-)
As a consumer you stick with WebM and all that the royalty freeness buys you. I'll stick with H264 knowing that MS has already paid the royalty, the patent pool has virtually every player in the game, and MS indemnifies me as an end user. We'll call it a day.
Sounds fine if all you want to do is go home, watch TV, and surf the Internet. But if that's what you're doing, you're probably not going to get sued anyway.
This is a community of entrepreneurs. What's at stake here is the next YouTube. If you're just a fledgling startup that shows videos online, can you afford a sudden surge in popularity, or will it bankrupt you in patent royalties? Can you estimate your future costs in royalties, or is it subject to change when MPEG-LA thinks it can get some more money from you? If you want to use video in some disruptive new medium, what will MPEG-LA decide to charge for that once they see its promise? Or will they refuse to license the patents at all for this purpose, in favor of giving MPEG-LA members exclusive dibs on this new medium?
I think the MPEG-LA's terms are pretty good for the next Youtube. First free web video is free. If you charge your customers, for the first 100K subscribers, it's free.
100,001 - 250,000 subscribers/year = $25,000; 250,001 - 500,000 subscribers/year = $50,000; 500,001 - 1,000,000 subscribers/year = $75,000; and more than 1,000,000 subscribers/year = $100,000.
That's about 10 to 25 cents per paying customer PER YEAR with first 100K subscribers free. And there are limits and caps on the increases.
As a consumer you stick with WebM and all that the royalty freeness buys you. I'll stick with H264 knowing that MS has already paid the royalty, the patent pool has virtually every player in the game, and MS indemnifies me as an end user. We'll call it a day.