It was a presentation on AV1 before it was released. I'll see if I can find it but I'm not holding my breath. It's mostly coming from my own recollection.
Ok, I don't think I'll find it. I think I'm mostly just regurgitating what I remember watching at one of the research symposiums. IDK which one it was unfortunately [1]
I've heard that same anecdote before, that hardware decoding was front of mind. Doesn't mean that you (we) are right, but at least if you're hallucinating it's not just you.
Where did you read that it was designed to make creating an hardware decoder easier?