I hear often that when something new appears that "competition is good". The primary reasons competition is seen as good, are: it drives down prices; it gives consumers more choice; it pushes technology forward, quicker. Competition is not good because: competition is why consumers have to choose between HD-DVD and BluRay; competition is why DRM exists; and more. In this article, each of the supposed benefits of competition will be looked at in more detail.
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Member since:2005-11-10
The CD was invented collaboratively. Why not a single successor to DVD? Now we get stupid crap like Paramount going HD-DVD only and screwing over every single BluRay owner (including Sony's PS3), for what is essentially the exact same content and quality. This is an anti-competitive action brought about by the presence of competition in the first place.
If there was a single standard agreed on for HD content, then we wouldn't be having this stupid game of charades and trying to justify that the expensive BluRay player people have bought, is not in fact junk.
There shouldn't have to be a BluRay / HD-DVD battle in the first place! Having a Winner of a pointless war proves nothing what so ever.
Member since:2007-02-11
> This is an anti-competitive action brought about by the presence of competition in the first place.
Very true. The problem with competition is that we are simply not in the eighties anymore (and even back then, we weren't in the seventies anymore :-P). The IT industry has converted from being a field ran by engineers to one ran by businessmen, who run it like they run fast food restaurants: once you get an edge over your competitors, you need to keep it and kill them off. The clients are only the means of achieving domination.
Basically, there's no guarantee that any of the companies will keep a fair competition, and this is the problem I see with competition in IT. The problem is that IT is a domain that still has a huge way to progress. Unfair competition in the market of fizzy drinks can't do any harm to buyers. Unfair competition in IT has already set us back several years, in at least a couple of important sectors (usability, WWW etc.)
Member since:2005-07-06
competition on the same standard is diferent than competing standards.
Competition is always good, the problem here is that competing standards create a difficult time till one wins.
Think IE. It got no competition, so no updates in 6 years.
Now FF is the competition, and sudenly we have IE7.
Member since:2006-05-22
Competition is great, but there has to be a way to allow competing technologies to interact. Especially in the case of Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD, where the competiton has gone beyond improving upon a technology and has, instead, split the market... You are right, that one will emerge and it will be vastly better (we hope anyways), but in the mean time the consumer is getting thrown for a loop
Member since:2007-07-31
Member since:2007-07-31
and to add... the only reason DRM exists is because the technology still exists
The media and publishing cartels have wanted their hands on consumers rights for hundreds of years (look at libraries) but its only NOW that technology can prevent what a user does with his second hand books and media AFTER they have read/watched them.
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Member since:
2005-11-29
I think competition is good simply for the fact that it forces people to do just that -- compete. If there was just HD-DVD or just Blu-Ray..what's the incentive to develop these technologies further?
There is none, the format is dominated, it's widely accepted, and it's controlled by one company.
This is never good, choice is always good.
The Blu-Ray / HD-DVD battle wont last too long, one will come out the winner in the household over the next few years.
I guarantee that they won't be in their current form, but most likely a revised form with an even greater feature set thanks to the fact that they compete.