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.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-06-13
"Greed is why consumers have to choose between HD-DVD and BluRay; HD DVD would be alone if Sony didn't have a history of wanting to make more money pushing their special systems with their restrictive licenses."
That's moronic and delusional. Do you think out of all the players involved in these two competing formats, it's just Sony that is doing wrong?
Ever heard of Microsoft? They have a like of prioprietary that would make even Sony blush. And for every Sony format, there is one or more other formats - all proprietary! Reality check indeed.
Member since:2005-08-22
Greed is why consumers have to choose between HD-DVD and BluRay; HD DVD would be alone if Sony didn't have a history of wanting to make more money pushing their special systems with their restrictive licenses.
Sony isn't the bad guy here. They created Blu-Ray from scratch, trying to create the best format. The end result was different enough from DVD that it was more cost effective to build new factories than to try to modify the existing factories to make Blu-Ray discs.
A few companies didn't like that, and decided to sacrifice disc capacity to create a format that could be manufactured with minimal changes to the existing factories.
Now, the complications. People aren't in any rush to move to HD, partly due to the slow uptake of HD in general, and partly due to the format confusion. Demand for normal DVDs is going up, so the manufacturers have to make new factories anyway, which presumably are being built with the ability to make any of the 3 types of disc, greatly reducing the advantage of HD-DVD.
Member since:2005-09-15
"Greed is why DRM exists. Some companies believe strong control over their content is the best way to sell more content because they can prevent sharing."
Good point. I hear MSFT's DRM schemes built into Vista defended because "they are just what they have to as the production companies mandated the DRM" - that's nonsense because a)MSFT invented WM DRM in the first place and b)MSFT owns and promotes HD-DVD.
So it's not HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray, its MSFT vs. Sony.
Don't believe either one of their smoke and mirror acts.
"So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.Joint statement to The Next Web from Microsoft and Google: "Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time." Good to know these children stopped acting like little pricks. Can we have full Google support in Windows 8 now, please?
Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr, the microblogging and social networking website, for $1.1 billion USD. Tumblr offers little revenue but lots of eyeballs if Yahoo can monetarize them. Now Yahoo is bidding for Hulu, the streaming video service. After years of ineffective responses while Google, Facebook, and others took large chunks of the online advertising market, Yahoo is fighting back. Can Yahoo reignite the momentum it had at the turn of the century? What do you think?
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently."In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies."The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
Member since:
2007-03-30
Greed is why consumers have to choose between HD-DVD and BluRay; HD DVD would be alone if Sony didn't have a history of wanting to make more money pushing their special systems with their restrictive licenses.
Greed is why DRM exists. Some companies believe strong control over their content is the best way to sell more content because they can prevent sharing. Others look at it in reverse: content sharing creates more consumers who are then, in a moral and just society, willing to reward the content creator fairly for his or her work.
Competition is why we are alive and Homo habilis is dead, not why Bluray and DRM exist. So you're backwards -- the existence of Bluray creates competition, not the other way around.