Slashdot Mirror
Why VHS Was Better Than Betamax
Vladimir Kornea writes "This article argues that 'when someone buys and uses a product, the technological aspects are a small and often uninteresting part of the decision' and that the when the 'whole product' (a term commonly used among marketing people) is considered, VHS was better than Betamax, and that the Wintel PC is better than the alternatives." Update: 01/29 04:26 GMT by T : Apologies for the dupe.
Didn't this story run like yesterday?
oh wait... dupe
second post!
Cause you could watch stuff over and over again in nice, compact, tape-form and not have to carry around an entire computer to see the same thing day after day.....
news for amnesiacs, stuff that mattered
know what i mean little timothy?
wink, wink, nudge nudge... say no more.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
and all /. editors know this:
Better Copies.
This time, it's even pointing to the same exact article, not just the same story covered by someone else
A new all-time slashdot low...
VHS was better in the same sense that the Model T Ford was better. It was cheaper, mass-produced, and more easily obtainable by the average Joe. Betamax was a technically superior format, with cleaner chrominance and luminance signal encoding/decoding to/from the tape, but Sony was just too expensive and arrogant with the Betamax's market positioning. They could've mass-produced them more cheaply to compete, but failed to do so in the very beginning, when timing and window of opportunity for establishing the dominant format was critical.
...that there's all these duplicate comments complaining about how the story is a duplicate story...
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
From Fark, last week, and from Slashdot, day before yesterday.
At least, that's what they say in the FAQ. I suggest the people that whine about dupes read it. Heck, if it's a dupe story, don't read it. You've already read it. Go to next story. Big whooping deal.
It's not like all the slashdot stories reside in databases on OUR systems. It's their database. If they want to have redundant data in it (a.k.a. dupe stories), let them.
Do we really need another debate about VHS vs Beta? Beta is dead, VHS won, and will itself be replaced by DVD-R in a few years. Enough already!
When people post the same story over and over it means its a better "whole product" then an new original story.
those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
Why Slashdot is better than Kuro5hin.
/because/ it is an amzingly popular weblog.
Before you mod me down as a troll, look at the idea-
Kuro5hin has many of the features people consistantly ask for (voting for stories)
Kuro5hin isn't owned by a large, closed source software-company.
Kuro5hin has more intellegant discussion, and fewer duplicated stories
But Slashdot has more users. Slashdot is an amazingly popular weblog,
Think about that. The main reason Slashdot is popular is because of it's base of users. Because of the comments. And higher-installed base makes it more attractive to many people.
That is exactly the argument made in this article.
Just some thoughts.
Colin
Colin Davis
I have an old, Sanyo top-loader Beta that I bought with money from my first job in 1985 and it's still running. The picture quality on it is better than the five four-head, gee-whiz VHS turds that have died on me within a couple of years of ownership. VHS won the format battle because of one thing...PORN! You could squeeze 7 hours of porn on a VHS tape, but only 4 on a beta. Microsoft proved it...your stuff can be better and still fail commercially.
I forgot to reply the first time this article was posted, so here goes...
Schofield seems to think that the incredibly obvious and oft-repeated arguments he presents have some relevance in evaluating the beliefs of people who think Beta was superior to VHS. He doesn't present a survey of the beliefs of these people, so I'll have to go with my own experiences, which in every instance contradict Schofield's view.
Schofield's insight mostly boils down to the obvious fact that the product that won was the one that on the whole was preferable to consumers. No Beta advocate could possibly dispute that. Nonetheless, there is actual substance to the claim that Beta was superior to VHS. People who preferred Beta did so on the basis of particular attributes that were important to them, and that were demonstrably superior in Beta. "Technical superiority" is a fair characterization of these attributes, and is clearly the point people are making when they say or write that Beta was better than VHS.
Schofield's condescending and infantile tone aside, his argument has no demonstrable substance. For whatever reason, he chooses not to understand the trivial and obviously factual point made by people who point out that Beta was (at least in many important respects) technically superior to VHS. Does he really think that Betamax advocates think Beta offered a better "whole product" than VHS? That seems unlikely. My guess is that he wanted to write that pointing out Beta's technical superiority is beside the point. But it makes better headlines to say something is a myth than to say it's beside the point, especially since not everyone cares what Jack Schofield thinks the point is. The fact that he has to create a straw man in order to do so seems not to worry him.
His argument is akin to pointing out that someone who says Shawn Bradley is a very tall center is missing the point. Obviously, commenting on Shawn Bradley's height is not the best way of assessing his talents as a center. But when I say he's tall, I mean he's tall. If I wanted to comment on his value as a center, I'd do that. If Schofield wants to argue that someone has a "failure to understand how technology markets work," then he should find a claim about technology markets. The claim that Beta was technically superior to VHS is not one.
Just to be clear, I was never a Beta advocate. I did have both kinds of machines when I was younger, and on the whole I would have been happier had Beta won, but my comments are not motivated by any history of rabid advocacy. On the whole, I couldn't care less than I do about VCR tape formats. But I do get a little upset now and then when ignorant people abuse their soapboxes to mock folks with more reasonable and well supported views.
Oliver Wendel Jones stated that the test of the truth of an idea is its power to get accepted in the marketplace of ideas. While there is some validity to this notion, it lacks familiarity with a physical or logical discipline. Our society is blighted with a tendancy to ascribe anthropomorphic victory to an idea which has achieved greater acceptance. This blight is in part the reason we fall victim to other basic flaws in logical thinking which lead to such phenomenon as bigotry. If one loses the backwards need to declare victory of some kind, one can see that the popularity of an idea is no measure of its accuracy or validity. After all, if enough people think that individuals of african descent are less intelligent than those of european descent, does this make the idea true? Certainly it does not. But, at one time, it was widely accepted. If an idea becomes popular enough, it becomes deemed 'right' by those who have no intellectual ambition to see for themselves what they want to believe.
The intelligent thing to do is simply to point out that VHS was more popular than betamax. The mistake is to confuse popularity with quality. They are actually two different things.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
The best part of slashdot is that it is possible to get first post in the same story..TWICE
What this article really explains is why we are so wrong about the Prisoner's Dilemna. You know, the police interrogator offers to co-conspirators the chance to confess--if neither confesses they both get 5 years of jail, if one confesses he goes free while his associate gets 20 years, and if both confess they both get 10 years.
The Beta VCR, Linux, and Apple fans say a cooperative strategy of mutually refusing to confess is the best strategy that maximizes the cumulative outcome of everyone. But this article and most consumers evaluate the "whole product" of confession and incarceration, realizing that they are better off confessing no matter what their associate does, and goes out to buy Office XP.
All you trolls out there, with various free-times and scripts, how about you guys start up some scripts which pick random dupes and submit them? I can see that this problem has gotten out of hand, but the editors obviously dont, so let us join together and troll their fucking asses.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Groundhog Day?
Ever think you were in it?
Ever think the slashdot moderators were in it?
I have to say that the author of this article doesn't understand why people talk about the way things ought to be. As in the case of the standard x86 system. He clames that PCs are better because more people use them therefor there is a greater support and software base... Duh! It doesn't change the fact that there is better technology out there and that the masses don't always make the best descisions. Simply, by his arguements the consumer chooses the better "whole product" and through that choice makes it the better "whole product". So what's the point of the article? I don't think the author could even give you a valid arguement for the existance of the article.
Here is a crash course tutorial on how not to repeat stories on Slashdot. This tutorial comes FREE(as in beer) of cost !
1. After you have decided on the story, point your URL to http://slashdot.org.
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page you see.
3. Locate the text box on the left. Make sure that there is a button titled "Search" on to it's right.
4. Choose some keywords from the article, and type them out in the text box. If you need a tutorial on how to select keywords, quit this job.
5. Now click the search button and wait for the results. Among the results, see if any articles have been posted before.
Yes, it's that simple ! Example query listing is here
getSexySig();
It doesn't matter that this was posted two days ago, and the articles are similar in functionality, this article is better as far as the whole product aspect.
just the girl geeks
Pssh. Like they exist.
Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
This article was to illustrate that VHS was very good for making copies, hence the duplicate news.
This is classic Urban Myth revisionism: the writer gets his kicks by simply labelling any common, but old and hard to prove if you weren't there, knowledge as "an Urban Myth" and then sells it to gullible editors.
Complete crap from start to end, just like his insane assertion that the PC was better than the alternatives - what a toss-pot.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Windows is stuffed down your throat by a monopoly.
Freedom to choose hasn't occurred yet.
He is saying the popular device is the better device, Which is better ? A Toyota or a Aston Martin? Well they sure do sell allot more Toyotas.
Get a free ipod.
1. Copy the link location from the article being considered for posting to the front page.
2. Paste that URL into the search field.
3. Post story if and only if no result pops up.
No need for keywords, no extraneous results.
blog
will be happy. This is a single case of what happened in consumer technology. Doesn't apply to all markets, all customers, or all products. Enough of this story already!
Onward to the Aether Sphere!