Or a war on Apple? If they also remove H.264 from YouTube, and iPhones don't play Flash and Safari doesn't work with VP8 because Apple (and Microsoft) haven't included support, then iPhone and iPad users have been effectively shut out of YouTube, unless I'm reading this wrong. Of course, as someone pointed out, if iPhones couldn't play YouTube videos anymore, someone would come out with an App that would turn up in the App Store. As someone points out in the comments, the article doesn't mention YouTube, but why would Google drop H.264 support in their browser but continue to put H.264 encoded videos on YouTube? Use our browser, but we should warn you that it doesn't work on that site we own, you know...that video site...? Makes a lot of sense. Not.
Of course, if they go to VP8, people using IE can't play the videos either, at the moment.
I think this comment hit it on the head:
QUOTE
Anyone who thinks Google is doing this to benefit the broad consumer base has had the wool pulled over their eyes.
They in essence are going to create a rift in the Internet yet again, intentionally it seems, so that they can pull people away from OTHER'S platforms and not promoting anything "open".
Google is trying to build their own walled garden, drawing lines in the playfield that is the Internet to make it more difficult for consumers to use more than one brand.
It's a long term play to see how far they can take their search, advertising and video monopoly to knock out opponents in other industries they want to control.
So, they're not doing anyone any favors, only building trenches for a war they hope to win and eagerly pushing to start even though most consumers don't want it to happen.
Unless of course, Apple and Microsoft decide to support VP8, which is unlikely, given that both Apple and Microsoft get royalties from H.264 (not the distribution via the web, but from decoders, browsers etc.)
A mess.
