Technology Micro-Rant
Dear Manufacturers, there is a signifigant and important difference between “early adoption” and “half baked products”. Please make a note of it. No matter how many shiny, pre-N wifi devices you come out with, I won’t be buying one. It’s too similar to trading in my dollars for a currency that MIGHT be used in some market someday. See also Blu-Ray HD-DVD. I think I’ll wait and see before taking a 50/50 shot at owning this generation’s Betamax. Finally, Sony… please stop making ultra-proprietary products and being shocked when folks fail to embrace them, tossing aside any realistic hopes of well-supported compatibility. You will not recapture the lost glories of your Walkman days in this way. You are so good at physical design, but so bad at understanding your (potential) customers. You’re only embarrassing and hurting yourself.
I own a working BetaMax. I don’t USE it, but I’m hoping some day a collector of nostalgia will buy it for more money than I would get for it in a yard sale.
With MP# players as ubiquitous as they are, how long will we continue to buy music on those scratch-susceptible plasti platters? Oh, yeah – I also have music on vinyl.
But I’m just old, I guess.
I’m actually more confident buying music on those scratch-susceptible plasti-platters than online. With an array of often incompatible and DRM infected formats out there, I’m dubious of marrying my music collection to a format that I can be locked out of by a greedy developer or RIAA. Read those EULAs!