You can easily find VP8 used on Youtube. Not big enough? Those predators wouldn't hesitate to sue, if they'd have something to bite with. But they have no teeth.

It's way too early to be suing with merely YouTube, no network effects. Google can easily switch away.

You can come up with any kind of arguments or guesses about why they don't sue, but the bottom line - they didn't provide any proofs, so their FUD doesn't worth anyone's time, and these codecs can be considered unencumbered and free to use (and that's what's happening to their displeasure).

I think you're engaged in wishful thinking. I wish you were right too.