> And before you go about "H.264 licensing costs" I'd like to remind that using H.264 for freely distributed web video is completely free for the next 5½ years.
And *after* 5½ years money won't exist at all, because the Singularity will have arrived! 5½ years is so far in the future that taking anything about it into account when making decisions now would just be *irrational*!
(Out of curiosity, when is your cut-off for the future being relevant? 5 years? 3 years? 1 year? next week?)