FFmpeg has its own native H.264, HEVC, MP3, Speex and AAC decoders. It's true that they don't have an H.264 or HEVC _encoder_ without calling out to external libraries, but they have a pretty good AAC encoder now, and TBH most use of FFmpeg is for decoding, not encoding.
> most use of FFmpeg is for decoding, not encoding.
Isn't that merely an observation of how lopsided media consumption vs production is on average?