Quote:
Originally Posted by boxcorner
You seem to be arguing in favour of a situation where a monopoly is encouraged to prevail. At its height, Sony's Betamax (ie VHS' rival) held 25% of the UK market. That's a lot of losers. I doubt they've have forgotten their experience. Using software as an alternative example, I imagine that most OS X and Linux users are glad that Microsoft doesn't hold a monopoly. Surely consumers are better off when given a free choice, rather than having a gimmick forced on them by marketing people.
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Boxcorner, I’m not arguing in favor of anything. I simply cited a case in history to illustrate the point that e-reader formats will eventually be resolved in the marketplace.
That having been said, I will also point out that free choice in the marketplace is a wonderful dream, but it lacks practicality in this instance. For one thing, having several different e-reader formats from which to choose creates an economic barrier to new manufacturers. There may be someone out there right now with the engineering ability to produce an e-reader far superior in features and/or price to those currently available, but that person would be justifiably reluctant to manufacture the product because whatever format he/she chooses may end up going the way of the Beta video cartridge.
So would a choice between multiple e-reader platforms be better than expanding our choices of superior e-readers? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I’m pretty sure you can’t have it both ways.
H.P.