VP9 isn't H.265 level. That is the marketing spin of AOM. And even AOM members admit VVC is better than AV1.
Liking one codec or whether it is royalty free is one thing, whether it is performing better is another thing.
Other developers ran into a ton of issues with licensing HEVC for their own software which is still a complete pain.
Anyway, people are now looking at what's next. VVC came out quite a while ago, and AV1 more recently, but when people are looking for the current sota codec with at least some good support, they end up choosing between the two, realistically. And yeah, VVC has advantages over AV1 and they are very different technically. But the market has pretty loudly spoken that VVC is a hassle no one wants to mess with, and AV1 is quickly becoming the ubiquitous codec with the closest rival VVC offering little to offset the licensing troubles (and lack of hardware support at this point as well)
Anyway, just saying. VVC is a huge pain. HEVC still is a huge pain, and though I prefer it to vp9 and it has much better quality and capabilities, the licensing issue makes it troublesome in so many ways. But the choice almost always comes down to vp9 or HEVC, then AV1 or VVC. Though at this point it might as well be, in order, h264, vp9, HEVC, AV1, and no one really cares about VVC.