Slashdot Mirror
Why People Should Stop Being Duped By the 3D Scam
Phoghat writes "The entertainment and electronics industries keep trying to push 3D on consumers, even though a lot of smart people have caught on to the fact that it is a scam and not innovation as the industry would like you to believe. From the article: 'This is a bad experiment that the industry is forcing consumers to subsidize. And since they can’t create a better product, they’ve simply latched on to 3D as a marketing ploy that the entertainment and electronics industries can use to trick people into thinking that they are getting a superior experience. It’s only working because just enough people are falling for the scam to keep it alive.'"
The movie industry are selling entertainment, people pay for what they find entertaining, if they pay more money to watch the 3d version then the 2d version, then that means that they think that the 3d version is more entertaining.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that everyone else is getting scammed. (However it's worth noting that some movies are scamming in that they're doing really shitty 3D just to get the higher ticket price, but just like anything else shoveled out the door for a quick buck word catches on quick and their sales become abyssmal)
Typical geek blither-blather. "I don't like it therefore everyone who does is an idiot who's being duped." Here on /. I've seen this argument used against: Apple, craft beer, very spicy chiles, tablets in general, 3d film and TV, hybrid cars, wind power, solar power, drug laws, Democrats, Republicans and organized sports.
Just accept that people like different things and move on. I realize this is a strain to the borderline Asbergers types who are rife around here, but come on. Sometimes there isn't a "right answer" for everyone.
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
Obviously if you liked something that someone else didn't, it's because you were tricked into it. Haven't you ever been on the internet before?
3D is just a scam, I didn't really watch Avatar in 3D and enjoy it far more than when I watched it in 2D, nope, that was all just part of my imagination.
Really, this is one of the more fucking retarded Slashdot stories I've seen in a while, the article can be summed up entirely as:
"3D is a scam, because I, Mr Random Nobody, says so. End of."
Sure 3D isn't brilliant everywhere, some attempts at it are pretty naff, sure sometimes it's misused, but so is audio particularly the likes of surround sound, so are special effects, so is colour. It's a tool, and like any tool, when used right, it can be pretty effective. But a scam? That's like saying a hammer is a scam because you can't screw screws into the wall with it when you try. It'd help if there was anything in the article other than his mere reiteration of his personal opinion that it's a scam and absolutely nothing more than that backing up his point.
The guy is a douche of the highest order, but the Slashdot editors moreso for letting such utter shite through. If someone is going to suggest something is a scam, they at least need to explain why. People spouting unfounded shite without an ounce of evidence to back up their point is what I expect from the comments, not the story... I know, I must be new here.
Actually, you probably will. I don't like 3D movies and I ended up with a 3D capable TV just because most of the really good new TV's have this capability. If I could have bought the exact same model without 3D, I would have.
Anyways, I think it's an interesting phenomenon that generally "techy" people seem to sometimes get really bent out of shape about new tech. We saw the same thing with HD TVs. We used to see it more with new versions of OS's and software.
In my completely subjective opinion, it's an aversion to marketing. A lot of the population see the world of technology as filled with magic black boxes. Techies see objects with an innate desire to understand at least the basics of how they work. When their understanding of how things work, and consequently the implications of that functionality existing in the real world, doesn't match with the marketing it is perceived as bullshit. A negative opinion is formed. The stronger the marketing effort and the more that marketing deviates from perceived reality, the more strongly the resistance and desire to communicate that negative opinion.
Which isn't to say techies' perceptions are always on par with everyone else or even in agreement with other techies. But I think it goes a long way towards explaining various flame wars, pseudo-religious product followings / anti-followings, and long-running arguments that are the stuff of techie communities / forums / blogs.
This technology fools the eye into thinking that objects are close while the actual image is still distant.
That is an absurd complaint for 3D movies in the theater.
Why? Because we only use the convergence of our eyes and focal length of our pupils for distances less than 30 feet.
Looking at stuff beyond that, our focus is completely 'relaxed' and our eyes are parallel. We have no actual depth perception past that, we're just inventing it from the size of objects and their location on the ground.
This is one of the reasons people prefer to sit at the distance they do in a theater. Sitting closer is tiring for the eyes, not just because they can't see the whole screen at once, but because the eyes keep trying to focus past the screen, and then back to it.
And, no, the 3D effect can only make things further away from the screen, not closer. It can't trick your eyes into focusing 10 feet away or whatever. The whole 'popping out of the screen' is just because we mentally think of the screen as a window where the actual stuff in it is at a distance.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?