It could get us out of this mess after a decade of it's hardware encoder/decoder being built into things. If we all just switched to it now, if everything shipped with hardware encoder for AV1 now magically, it would still be a decade before the pre-existing computers/devices were no longer used and AV1 could actually be a default. That's only become possible with HEVC recently.
I do look forwards to an open future. But it's no quick solution.
I agree with your end state desire, but don't shrug off the parent point. Why does dell have to think about license fees for a hardware feature sold to them by a CPU company?
Because they're using a video format which demands licencing fees from multiple organisations (Via-LA, Access Advance, Velos Media, Technicolor). They demand payment.
Patent pools consist of a bunch of lawyers seeking to parasitically extract revenue from implementers of the format. They don't do anything else.
They're all going to hike the licencing fees to maximum they can get away with. They will approach businesses and say, "That's a nice codec you've got there. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it."
To HP's and Dell's utter astonishment, they have discovered that when you lie down with dogs you get fleas.
What HP and Dell should do instead is focus on royalty-free video formats like VP9, AV1, and the future AV2 and join the Alliance for Open Media: https://aomedia.org/about/members/
No, the problem is trying to use royalty-bearing formats for internet video. Royalty-free formats like AV1 avoid the problem.