Battle of the standards or: how to f* consumers in the *ss

Standard? Why? Remember when we had three video formats? We had Betamax (Sony), VHS (Video Home System, by JVC) and Video2000 (Philips). VHS became a standard format for consumer recording and viewing in the 1980s and 1990s after competing in a fierce format war with Sony’s Betamax and, to a lesser extent, Philips’ Video 2000. Since none of the systems worked with each other, millions of consumers that didn’t choose VHS initially, wounded up with a non-standard product (and loads of shitty videos). In short: it sucked. When the DVD came out in the mid-90’s, at least every DVD player […]