It’s a bit like developing an F1 car. Or a cutting edge airplane. Lots of small optimizations that have to work together. Sometimes big new ideas emerge but those are rare.

Until the new codec comes to together all those small optimizations aren’t really worth much, so it’s a long term research project with potentially zero return on investement.

And yes, most of the small optimizations are patented, something that I’ve come to understand isnt’t viewed very favorably by most.

>> And yes, most of the small optimizations are patented, something that I’ve come to understand isn’t viewed very favorably by most.

Codecs are like infrastructure not products. From cameras to servers to iPhones, they all have to use the same codecs to interoperate. If someone comes along with a small optimization it's hard enough to deploy that across the industry. If it's patented you've got another obstacle: nobody wants to pay the incremental cost for a small improvement (it's not even incremental cost once you've got free codecs, it's a complete hassle).