Changing it is easy. Adding options is an easy way to avoid choices.

But Jabbles' point still remains: It's a hard choice to make.

I don't think it's a hard choice for the browser to make- send the data as it is captured by the camera. How that is displayed is something else, but as timdorr demonstrates, it's not difficult to toggle.

It's a hard choice for the human who has to pick one or the other and justify that decision.

In what way? The developer should have no problem justifying the decision. "It's what the camera sensor sees".

I absolutely understand the application in webchat and why you would want it to be mirrored at a page level, but I'm at a loss to understand why the browser implementation would try to reflect that.

"reflect" tsk boom!

I agree that it's a hard choice; I had to make this exact choice last week when working on a video chat service. Possibly because of the nature of the service (tutoring/teaching) it felt incredibly unnatural to see a non-mirrored image of myself. I tried it out both ways and it really did feel quite peculiar, and I had a hard time figuring out my own movements (kinda like trying to shave using two mirrors).

The last time I tried this it also flipped the controls. Is this still the case?