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Why VHS Was Better Than Betamax

Posted by timothy on from the whole-systems-approach dept.

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.

23 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. DUPE! by dsmey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Didn't this story run like yesterday?

    1. Re:DUPE! by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Funny
      Didn't this story run like yesterday?

      Just like a good movie on a VCR tape, this story worth rewinding and playing again and again.

      I never get tired of VHS vs. Betamax flamewars. Nothing could be more compelling, relevant or engaging than debating the relative merits of these 20-year old tape formats a few more times.

  2. first post! by yobbo · · Score: 5, Funny

    oh wait... dupe

    second post!

  3. Why it was better.... by telstar · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.....

    1. Re:Why it was better.... by Paul+E.+Loeb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the image quality differences are a big deal only to a very small segment. The difference between VHS's "good" and BetaMax's "great" is lost on most people. good is good enough. people will opt for lossy "compression" for the sake of more content (witness the MP3 format's success.) consider that even with vhs most people will record at whatever level gives them the longest record time, sacrificing quality. Ask the average tivo owner what quality level they select for their seinfeld reruns. VHS won because it gave people more of less, in a way. Just like McDonalds makes money hand over fist serving "food" that would make a french chef gag. :)

  4. slashdot's new theme... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    news for amnesiacs, stuff that mattered

  5. Beta will always be better for DUPLICATION.... by malakai · · Score: 4, Funny

    know what i mean little timothy?

    wink, wink, nudge nudge... say no more.

    --
    -Malakai
    A Dragon Lives in my Garage
  6. The real reason VHS was better than betamax.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    and all /. editors know this:

    Better Copies.

  7. Model T Ford by Nick+Driver · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Model T Ford by urbazewski · · Score: 3, Insightful
      There's a subtle tautology involved in the author's claim that "the whole product" that cornered the market was superior. It's equivalent to saying that the product must have been better or people wouldn't have bought --- there's no way to falsify this claim.

      If the whole product includes the network externalities involved with purchasing the dominant product, which is the argument that the author makes about 'Wintel PCs', then the superior technology is by definition the winning technology, and vice versa. I think we still want and need to separate out technological issues from the strategic marketing decisions. The "whole product" concept does not prove that an inferior technology cannot prevail in the marketplace, it simply defines the possibility out of existence.

      annmariabell.com

      --
      foldplay your photos won't know what hit them.
    2. Re:Model T Ford by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 4, Informative

      Really, the story really doesn't examine superiority, but it does raise a point in a vague way but unfortunately reaches too stiff of a conclusion, particularly the conclusion that the best is always what market chooses, or the market chooses what is the best.

      I am uncomfortable with the idea of assigning "best" to the dominant player simply because it dominates sales, which the article seems to imply in ways, and that it really isn't any better of a way to evaluate how good something is. Is McDonald's the best at burgers simply because they have the highest sales? The only thing that McDonald's really did right was by hitting a happy medium of price, quality, speed and convenience.

      What the article does get right is by showing a lot of reasons why a different product didn't do as well, and shows why being better doesn't mean you'll dominate. Does better marketing really make a better product? I don't think so, it really only improves sales.

      There are lots of choices. Which choices make the best sense _depends_on_the_situation_. Sure, infrastructure and support matters. Sure, price matters. But there's usually a reason the competing, more expensive, less supported products still exist despite those obstacles: there is _still_ a market for it. The answer to the issue lies in what you plan to do with it.

      Did VHS win? In the consumer market, yes, and probably overall production volume, yes. But the price and library concerns don't affect video professionals the same way. As you point out, Beta was the choice for a lot of TV stations. TV stations don't care whether rental stores had Beta copies of Vampire Vixens from Outer Space, because they generally don't use the decks that way.

      Beta could have won the consumer market in the long term, but apparently there were too many valid reasons for it not to work out.

    3. Re:Model T Ford by Bodrius · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The market doesn't choose what is "best" per se, and I don't think the article points in that direction.

      The market chooses what the market WANTS.

      According to some definitions of product, including the "whole product" idea used in the article, a "good product" is a product that matches the market demands.

      In that sense, the "best product" is the one that gives the market what it wants, and by the nature of the market, the dominant players tend to do that in a free market.

      That doesn't mean the product is "better" from a technical, moral, or whatever other point of view you want, except from the point of view that it meets the desires of consumers.

      The consumers might want inefficient vehicles, lousy paperback novels, kitschy pop culture or education aimed at the attention span of a 3-year-old on a glucose overdose. That doesn't mean that they're better vehicles, literature, culture or education, but if the public is more willing to pay for those, by definition they're better "products".

      --
      Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
  8. The funny thing is... by Repton · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...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.
    1. Re:The funny thing is... by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yes, I hear the MPAA is going to fine Timothy for duplicating a story which mentions "VHS".

      I mean, if the subject matter involves "Duplicate" and "VHS", you figure a law got broken somewhere.

      --
      "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
  9. history repeatimg by chrismacmahon · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  10. Perhaps this article can also explain by E1ven · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why Slashdot is better than Kuro5hin.
    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, /because/ it is an amzingly 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
    1. Re:Perhaps this article can also explain by CurlyG · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Kuro5hin is full of unbelievably pretentious people just *burning* to let each other know how intellectual they are.

      Kuro5hin is chock-a-block full of flamebait articles - it's purpose is to incite pointless psuedo-intellectual pissing contests.

      Slashdot's purpose is to provide links to news and articles of interest - if you want to discuss them here you can.

      Slashdot is phenomenally popular because it provides something that huge numbers of people want.

      Kuro5hin isn't, because it doesn't.

      You may think your argument is exactly the same as the one being made in the article, but your argument is a bloody stupid one, and totally irellevant to the discussion.

      Why not just piss off back to K5 and have an 'intellegant' discussion or whatever it is you think you're doing.

      --
      You know they call 'em fingers but I've never seen 'em fing. Oh, there they go.
  11. Re:first post! by ubugly2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The best part of slashdot is that it is possible to get first post in the same story..TWICE

  12. A request for trolling by Lord+Bitman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  13. Ever see the movie.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Groundhog Day?

    Ever think you were in it?

    Ever think the slashdot moderators were in it?

  14. Weak arguements by BytePusher · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  15. Dear /. editors by KoolDude · · Score: 3, Informative


    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(); /* returns sexy signature */
  16. but this article is better by Barbarian · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.