
Why the Best Doesn't Always Win (1996) - plainOldText
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/05/magazine/why-the-best-doesn-t-always-win.html
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bmmayer1
It really depends on what your definition of 'best' is, doesn't it?

This article seems to suggest that Apple was the better computer in 1996 while
Windows was dominating. But Windows was dominating _because_ it was the
platform of choice for business users who had trained on it, built custom
applications for it, and networked their offices with it. It was the best
solution at the time for the customers who needed it.

Path dependence is not evidence of the market not working; just the opposite.
It's evidence that products the author of this article likes better aren't
necessarily as successful on the market as products most consumers know how to
use.

The irony is, that Apple eventually triumphed because it invested in more
intuitive design, using path dependence in its own favor. Hence their famous
saying: "You already know how to use it"

~~~
msla
It's hard to say which of two technologies is better when they're not
substitutable. For example, you can't replace a gas-burning truck with a lot
of carrying capacity and a long range with a small electric car with basically
no carrying capacity and much shorter range. They don't do all of the same
things.

You can argue that nobody _needs_ the truck, or at least that the person
you're talking to doesn't need the truck, but that's a "you're holding it
wrong" or, at the extreme, a "you're living wrong" argument, and it comes down
to moral arguments in the extreme case.

> The irony is, that Apple eventually triumphed because it invested in more
> intuitive design

The only intuitive interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.

~~~
theoh
The line about the nipple should be qualified: it's currently thought that
face detection is also innate.

(though, intriguingly, it's apparently unknown whether this is because
recognizing faces is important specifically for babies, or because the human
visual system is evolved to process that kind of thing. i.e. maybe there are
other stimuli, not face-shaped, which would also intrigue babies because they
push the visual system's buttons:

[http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00...](http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00969/full)
)

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pg_bot
The idea of technologically superior products is a huge blind spot for
engineers.

A lot of people whinge about why obviously better products fail when inferior
products succeed. Technological superiority is nice, but what you should be
looking for when building products is market superiority. The overall quality
of a product is only a single factor when making a purchase. Useability,
safety, convenience, education, price, flexibility, distribution, marketing,
and network effects also contribute to the success or failure of a product.

Some common battles references of "superior" products failing are:

Betamax vs VHS:

Betamax had better image quality, but VHS had a longer runtime and was
cheaper. Consumers wanted to watch movies without switching tapes and image
quality was good enough on VHS, so it won.

High Speed Rail:

Who wouldn't want trains that travel over 250 mph? They are clearly superior
to the regular trains that we are using so why not upgrade? High speed rail's
biggest competitor is not a train, it is planes. Planes have disadvantages in
terms of leaving you outside the center of a city, but they have several
advantages over high speed rail. First they have lower operating costs. You
need fewer people to operate a plane and planes fly at over 500 mph, so you
need to pay less per mile per employee. Planes are safer and more flexible
than high speed rail. You can re-route a plane to any destination in the world
for no additional cost. High speed rail requires very expensive land
acquisition and once the track is set it cannot be changed without additional
capital. If you flex with the parameters there are conditions where high speed
rail can be price competitive with planes but it requires highly dense cities
relatively close to one another. The majority of the United States is not set
up this way, so it is rational that we should not expect high speed rail.

I could go on and on, but I believe most people are rational when making
purchases. You can't fool everyone forever, so if your product is flailing
look inward talk to customers and figure out how to make a market superior
product instead of a technologically superior product.

~~~
mtl_usr
High speed rail pretty much only works in Japan and Europe for this very
reason.

It does have the benefit of offering a rather relaxing travel experience
compared to flying. Taking the Eurostar between Paris and London takes less
than three hours, including security check and connect downtown to downtown.
It sadly can't scale however.

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msla
Betamax was not better than VHS or, at least, it wasn't that simple even from
a technical perspective:

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2003/jan/25/comment.c...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2003/jan/25/comment.comment)

> Later I found out that Betamax had owned the market, but lost it because
> Sony got one simple decision wrong. It chose to make smaller, neater tapes
> that lasted for an hour, whereas the VHS manufacturers used basically the
> same technology with a bulkier tape that lasted two hours. Instead of poring
> over the sound and picture quality, reviewers could simply have taken the
> systems home. Their spouses/children/grandparents and everybody else would
> quickly have told them the truth. "We're going out tonight and I want to
> record a movie. That Betamax tape is useless: it isn't long enough. Get rid
> of it."

> Betamax was the first successful consumer video format, and at one time it
> had close to 100% of the market. All of the video machines in use and all of
> the pre-recorded movies were Betamax. It had a de facto monopoly, and an
> element of lock-in (because of tape incompatibilities). It lost because, at
> the time, it could not do what consumers wanted: record a whole movie
> unattended. And although Betamax playing times were extended, they never
> caught up with VHS.

> Other elements of the oft-repeated Betamax story are also wrong. For
> example, while Sony was certainly slow to bring in other manufacturers, it
> had tried to license it to rivals such as JVC before VHS was even launched.
> Betamax was not generally more expensive: Sony had to slash its original
> high prices but generally it was competitive. Indeed, after it had lost the
> market, Betamax machines were often cheaper than VHS ones.

> And at the beginning, there was no comparative shortage of Betamax movies to
> rent: actually, they were all Betamax. (Stan Liebowitz, Professor and
> Associate Dean of the School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas,
> has done most research on this, but see urbanlegends.com for a quick guide.)

And, the most surprising thing:

> Indeed, the main thing that didn't fit was the idea was that Betamax was
> "technically superior". Standing in a shop at the time, there was absolutely
> no visible difference in picture quality, and some reviews had found that
> VHS's quality was superior.

~~~
covfefenut
So how did BluRay beat HDDVD and other standards?

I remember there was a Laserdisk standard and they made Episode 4, 5, 6 for
Laserdisk that was the original cinema version before Lucas changed things to
make it more family friendly, like Greedo shot first instead of Han Solo, etc.
The VHS version got edited and so did the DVD versions. Laserdisk was so old
it had the original released to cinemas but not the edits because they
abandoned the Laserdisk format for DVD and VideoCD later on.

~~~
marcosdumay
> So how did BluRay beat HDDVD and other standards?

BluRay won mostly nothing. But to the extent that it did win, it was mostly
because it was cheaper, more reliable, and iterated faster than HDDVD.

When HDDVD disappeared people were still having problems producing the higher
density disks. BluRay started as a low density format, and quickly evolved
until it had more capacity than HDDVD had even even planned.

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nayuki
It's odd that the article mentions two or more examples for every topic (e.g.
VHS vs. Betamax, English vs. Esperanto, Macintosh vs. Microsoft, gasoline vs.
steam vs. electric car). But for keyboards, only QWERTY was mentioned, with an
allusion to "half a dozen other keyboard layouts that are said to permit
faster typing". So here are a few alternatives: Dvorak, Colemak, Arensito.

~~~
Phanyxx
Thanks for that! Out of curiosity, do you use any of those alternative
keyboard layouts?

~~~
anschwa
I learned to touch-type Dvorak about 5 years ago and it's been fantastic. It
takes a moderate amount of commitment to become proficient, but immediately
more comfortable and natural.

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RachelF
A good article. There is way more to it than a Mac vs PC debate. Path
dependence is something that is worth understanding, but seldom thought of.

To his examples, I'd add these:

\- The way modern computers and their operating systems are designed reflects
1960's hardware with different tiers of storage speeds for RAM and HDD. Cache
and flash are now tacked on.

\- The width of cars and railways is determined by the fact that they needed
to use existing roads, which are as wide as two horses.

\- The entire political, tax and legal system has evolved and is not optimal.

\- The human body is a hack of previous organisms, made with small incremental
changes. Take the spine, which in humans is structurally a tower, but most
animals use as a suspension bridge.

We have to put up with systems and things that are "good enough" and all their
previous versions were also "good enough".

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CM30
Ease of use and a clear audience may be another reason for this. I mean, look
at WordPress. It's certainly not what a lot of people would consider a great
script, nor the 'best' CMS around.

However, it powers about 25% of the entire internet and 59% of all those sites
using a CMS. Why?

Because it just offered what people wondered in a simple, easy to understand
system rather than trying to be a super powerful jack of all trades that only
tech geeks could understand. Joomla and Drupal offered more customisation
options, but it was overwhelming for a lot of people, whereas WordPress just
focused on being a blog and offered what was needed to run a blog straight out
of the box.

And that same sort of 'simplicity sells' thing may also be part of why
smartphones are doing so well recently (no messy configuration like with
normal computers and very easy app installation features) as well as why games
consoles still sell at a time when PCs can do everything as well or better.

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jgamman
people who quote adam smith appear to have never read it - AS states that
people prefer to have companies in their own country and not overseas 'as if
an invisible hand' were guiding them. It's literally the opening line of the
@#$@#$# paragraph and it's been twisted to mean "because markets! ammiright?"

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bmm01
Leaving aside the content and focusing only on style, can't we agree that the
internet made journalistic writing so much more dull? What an engaging piece.

