<rant>
"de facto standard" is a meaningless, self-contradictory phrase that really boils down to saying "But this is the way we've always done it!"
Standards are not de facto. Standards are things created by standards bodies. The word has an actual meaning. Trying to twist it to mean "the way we do stuff now" (as your argument for h.264 does) or "the way I want to do stuff" (as many arguments for HTML5 (which doesn't have a standard yet) do) is intellectually dishonest.
</rant>
"Standard" has more than one meaning. In the phrase "de facto standard" I think the meaning is more in the direction of "something considered by an authority or by general consent as a basis of comparison."
Or to put it another way, standards bodies do not, as you seem to be implying, have a monopoly on the word "standard".
If you look at it from the perspective of the provider, the standard is h.264 files on the server, and various avenues through which you can deliver it. Saying WebM is tied for second place is vastly overstating its proximity in popularity space to h.264.
Whatever bro. WebM isn't and will never be a browser standard so I'm not sure what you're getting at. None of the codecs will as stated in the HTML5 Specification.
If you don't think de facto standards are important then you are clueless about the history of the internet and technology in general.
In fairness, bro, I never mentioned WebM in the post you are replying to, nor did I suggest that "de facto standards" are irrelevant. I merely disagreed with your use of the phrase "de facto standard" in and of itself.
Standards are not de facto. Standards are things created by standards bodies. The word has an actual meaning. Trying to twist it to mean "the way we do stuff now" (as your argument for h.264 does) or "the way I want to do stuff" (as many arguments for HTML5 (which doesn't have a standard yet) do) is intellectually dishonest. </rant>