boyajian@akov68.DEC (Jerry Boyajian) (09/27/84)
> From: trwspp!stassen 19-Sep-1984 10:45:28 > Technology and quality have nothing at all to do with who wins the > war... the sole factor in that is how popular they are, because the > companies which sell the most popular models will have the most money and > incentive to invest in more research, creating better systems, and gaining > even larger portions of the market. It's like a vicious circle ... once > a company starts gaining, only a catastrophe will prevent it from continuing > to take over almost all of the market. You want to talk vicious circle?? How about the consumer looking for a VCR being told that VHS is more popular than Beta. So, the consumer says to himself, "Wow! Then I'd better get a VHS!" Thus, after a number of these, VHS *becomes* more popular, which in turn reinforces the "VHS is more popular" line. It's got nothing to do with High-end, Low-end, or Ass-end. It's all got to do with marketing strategy. > I looked seriously at both Beta and VHS, and decided on VHS not > because it was better engineered (because it probably isn't), but because > several years down the line it probably will be. The sole point to be > gained from my article was that nobody seems to consider this when buying > a VCR; they only look at what is best *now*. That's not planning for > the future, and not a wise way to make a major purchase. Would you buy > a new car without knowing how much it would be likely to break down? That > wouldn't be planning for the future. Would you save $50 on an air > conditioner which eats $3 more in electricity per month than a more > efficient (but slightly more expensive) model? That also would not be > planning for the future. Would you buy a VCR without looking at how > available tapes will be, or how good the one you replace it with will > be? Be a smart shopper ... you've got to look around, and consider more > than the present! You can't be serious. What you are suggesting, when all of the rhetoric is done away with, is that we should all flock like mindless sheep to buy what we are told is the most popular, because it'll be the one around later. And what we shouldn't do is support the manufacturer that creates the best product for the money. We should reward the company with the inferior engineering division and the superior marketing division, while condemning the company with the superior engineering division and the inferior marketing division. Right. No thanks. Do you really expect that if VHS kills Beta that the "behemoths of VHS" will have any incentive to constantly improve their systems? The fact that Sony is out there adding some new spiffy feature to the Beta is what keeps VHS going to keep up. Sure, I can well believe that VHS would've developed the stereo VCR eventually without Beta Hi-Fi to compete with, but it probably would've taken longer, and I *seriously* doubt that they would have bothered developing a Hi-Fi system. What you don't seem to understand is that what will *really* kill the Beta, if it dies at all, is people like you who go for popularity rather than quality. Popularity? Talk about popularity with the people whose Fords or GM's are in the garage more than the less-popular, but better engineered Toyotas. Or to be more germane, talk about popularity with the people who have a CED videodisc player on their hands. I almost bought one, you know, because there was a greater selection of movies on CED than Laserdisc. I guess the jokes *not* on me, eh? Give me a break. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Maynard, MA) UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA