I honestly think part of it is the stupid name. I think it's an outstanding technical achievement and generally wonderful, but while 'Vorbis' sounds (somewhat) hip and cool, talk of encoding your audio as 'ogg files' is a one-way ticket to nerd Siberia.
This obviously has nothing to do with companies like google and their licensing decisions, but I do honestly think it's a major reason the format never caught on with the general public.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis#Name
This obviously has nothing to do with companies like google and their licensing decisions, but I do honestly think it's a major reason the format never caught on with the general public.