Danny ChaiI have a lot of theories about random things, and for no particular reason, I’m going to share some of them, even though you don’t care. First, that convenience trumps quality.
What would you say is the #1 thing people care about when it comes to music or other media? A lot of people assume that it’s quality. But they’re wrong. It’s convenience. That’s the single most important factor that determines whether a new media format will succeed, and is far more important than quality.
In general, people don’t want the highest quality media available, the best sounding or the best looking. They just want something that’s good enough. They will even sacrifice quality for something that sounds/looks worse, as long as it’s still good enough, in favor of convenience.
History is full of examples. Records started out at something like 78 RPM. Great sound quality, but you not a lot of music fit on a side and you had to flip it frequently. Later, they came out with long play records. People scoffed that they would never get popular since they sounded so much worse than 78 RPMs. But they were wildly popular, essentially replacing 78 RPM records, because people valued the convenience of fitting more music on a disc far more than the decrease in sound quality.
Same with cassette tapes. People didn’t think they’d be that popular since they sound so much worse than records. But they were hugely popular because they were so convenient. You could listen on your walkman, in the car, whatever, things you couldn’t do with better-sounding records.
I think the same thing is true with CDs; their popularity was driven more by their convenience (the ability to skip around) than their superior sound quality, since they sound worse than records. And they didn’t truly supplant even cassettes until CD players became standard in cars.
Same thing with DVDs. The convenience factor drove their adoption: not having to rewind, and being able to put much more stuff on a single disc. Laserdiscs didn’t take off, even though they also looked much better than VHS, because they were bulky.
And of course MP3s. Worse quality sound than records and CDs. Much more convenient. At least with audio, recent history has been a steady march towards worse sound quality but more convenience.
So why people keep thinking a new format that’s based solely on quality will succeed is beyond me. All of those better quality sound formats they keep introducing, SACD, HDCD music CD, DVD-Audio, etc. keep failing. None will ever take off until they offer something more convenient.
I don’t think Blu-Ray is going to be as huge as people think, either. Apparently Blu-Ray player sales have dropped, even after HD-DVD died. I’m not surprised. It might be the standard someday. But right now, there’s not a super-compelling reason to switch to it. The truth is, standard DVDs are good enough for most people. If they emphasized the storage capacity, maybe released entire TV season on a single disc, that would be different; way more convenient. But the picture quality difference isn’t enough.
So yeah, someone come up with a way to make media access more convenient, and as long as the quality is good enough, you’ll do well.
Random.