On the contrary, is very relevant and this joke is an old one used many times in the codec community.
Theora was supposed to be the unencumbered alternative, then it was VP8 and now it's Daala. Unfortunately, all these and even closed/patented codecs have just muddied the waters rather than being the "alternative" that solves it all.
Getting adoption of codecs is much harder in today's world than it ever was. The online, mobile and browse worlds are so divided than no company would ever want to give another an advantage by adopting the other companies codec.
