What happens when technology becomes more about egos than it is about what customers want? You have HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. I guess the only thing they could really agree on was to put dashes in their names. News.com has more:
"We are frustrated," said Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson on Friday on the sidelines of a panel discussion at CES, the industry's biggest U.S. trade show. "We are going to wind up with some number of consumers probably buying a format that dies, and we are probably going to wind up having to sell it to them. They are not going to be happy with us."
My personal opinion: HD-DVD will win, because it delivers the #1 feature customers want: legal copies. I asked several Blu-Ray vendors at CES about their support for legal copying, and they said it's nonexistent. This basically says to me that next gen vendors were too busy fighting over egos to notice that we're standing on the sidelines saying "hey guys, this is what we want, build it."
These are situations where capitalism should not have to take its course. There should be one format, to eliminate consumer confusion and save us from wasting money. But it's not about us... it never was. We're not customers to most of these companies, we're just faces to shove movies in front of, as long as we remember that, though we pay money for it, we don't really own it. But instead, the market will have to decide the winner, which will be a protracted war that the loser won't concede easily.
Whichever format wins, the customer loses, and that's sad. With stupid battles like this, it's no wonder "technology" people can't figure out why "normal" people hate us.
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