Guardian Unlimited | Online | Why VHS was better than Betamax, where a self-righteous pontificating wanker discusses how he's right and everyone else is wrong*. His argument is that VHS was better than Beta since the "whole product" was superior. Which is bullshit - both the argument and the premise.
When people say Betamax was superior, they're saying it was a better technology... full stop. They're not saying "Beta had more options in the video store and a huge amount of technical support"... they're saying "Beta was a better format than VHS". What you have to remember is that geeks do this all the time - they say something; that's what they mean. They're not saying "X is better than Y and becuase of that Z is true". They are JUST saying "X is better than Y". If they have an opinion about Z then they'll fucking say it.
Besides that; VHS didn't have a better total package. At the beginning, each format had an equal chance; but the physically smaller, very slightly higher quality format lost out because some poor business decisions were made. The whole product for VHS only became superior AFTER this occurred.
The other thing is... mostly people are not saying they actually give a toss about the difference. We all could have saved some shelf space with smaller tapes; but hey. Ultimately it's often just an observation that superior technology doesn't win. Which agrees entirely with what the guy was trying to prove in the first place. GAH!
[*] The irony of me posting that statement is acknowledged.
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