[pedanticfreak]

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_52401.h...

South Korea built vast infrastructure around IE6 and ActiveX. Just a year ago a full 60% of Korean traffic still came from IE6. Why? Because they relied heavily on features that were not in the spec that Microsoft deprecated and nobody else can or will implement.

An extreme example. But it highlights the importance of sticking to specs that can be freely implemented by anyone. Five years from now when MPEGLA decides to throw down the crap hammer do you want to have to keep around old Safari binaries just for sites that migrated to h264 while the rest of the web moved on?

[eli]

That sounds like an argument for free and open formats in general more than an argument for strict obedience to the W3C, but I see your point.

At the time those Korean sites were built, I'm guessing there was no spec nor open alternative to do what they were trying to do.

[petsos]

I don't think it is the same thing. Unlike ActiveX, video can be re-encoded (fairly easily I guess if you are going to use 2016 technology).