You're missing the point.
Dolby and others are creating an artificially difficult situation. They could have contributed to an open format and pushed its adoption.
But, profits.
Dolby is a for-profit enterprise in a capitalistic market, and is seemingly trying to create a winner-takes-all environment (or maybe that existed already?), similar to intel/amd in the CPU space.
This is Dolby's prerogative and to fault them for that demonstrates a naïvety about how the free market works.
That said, the impetus falls on both the journalists to inform the consumer, and on the consumer, to make the correct decision. We've already seen the broader tech industry effectively neuter and swindle the tech journalists. For crying out loud google (aLPhaBeT) owns youtube and can (and does) happily suppress real critique or competition. Apple scalped Anand of Anandtech from the public, IMO to silence his journalism about computers that remains unsurpassed in the computing space.
So this is where our "purpose" or "role stands. Dolby is seemingly trying to do what the other tech giants have already successfully achieved. It is
imperative we have the right discussions on this, and that the relevant journalists, including amir, do the due diligence to inform the consumer of what's going on and call out nasty practices
when we see them.
I have seen an extraordinary fear among journalists to levy real criticism or poignantly report on practices in the broader space. Gene at Audioholics is actually very good IMO, but even he falls flat when confronted with something he should know to criticize, as it breaks this positive and optimistic vibe. Measurements are great for keeping hardware manufacturers honest, but we need something like that in the software/decoder/industry space.
I'm serious. Tech journalism has become such a joke, with big tech effective obfuscating and manipulating the consumer
and the journalists, they liberate themselves from the consumer's interests, and create a carte-blanche for themselves to run amok and take over an industry (again, this is their prerogative). There's a reason Apple and others love MKBHD; he's a complete and total moron who parrots exactly what the tech company's marketing agencies want said.
This is one of those rare youtube videos where I see someone really point out the crap that's being said. Coincidentally (or not) he also actually swears in his videos. I'm pretty sure he's demonetized and suppressed by youtube.