🚀 go-pugleaf

gmar...@primenet.com wrote:
> 
> sew...@netcom.ca (John Savard) wrote:
> 
> >Iain Wilkie Logan <iain...@enterprise.net> wrote:
> 
> >>Or VHS versus Betamax - a case of a
> >>poorer technology becoming predominant, which is relatively unusual. Perhaps
> >>it was a victory by 'marketing' over 'product worth'.
> 
> >VHS was not tecnically more elegant. But it was superior in terms of
> >what the consumer valued even before it became 'the standard'.
> 
> Thus, the original poster was correct; i.e. VHS, the "poorer
> technology," is "not technically more elegant."
> 
> Yes, it delivered what the consumer wanted, but that does not refute
> the point that it was technically inferior.  Windows is clearly
> technically inferior, yet it apparently gives (most) consumers what
> they want.

There has been some work regarding complex dynamical systems which is
relevant to this
question.  One paper even used the VHS vs. Betamax story as an example. 
I don't have
the paper handy and can't remember the journal or author's.  Has anyone
else read any
of this research?  I seem to remember that the author's said something
about how VHS got
just a tiny bit of lead over Betamax, and the nonlinear system dynamics
were such that
this was enough to make VHS dominate, irrespective of marketing or
technology.  I think
they said that technologyies were not sufficiently different to
influence the system.

Chris Beamis