9 ms·

Is there any example of a technologically superior and higher quality option winning over a cheap and simple one? (In media recording and replay, at least). Th

Is there any example of a technologically superior and higher quality option winning over a cheap and simple one? (In media recording and replay, at least). This seems to happen again and again, with the cheap and simple option always winning.

open-source-ux 5y ago
The audio CD surpassed sales of vinyl records and cassettes. CDs arguably offer better sound (subjective I know) over vinyl and cassettes.
- yvrev 5y ago
  I'm going out on a limb here but wouldn't CD's be both cheaper and simpler to manufacture too?
  - open-source-ux 5y ago
    You're probably correct. That means the audio CD offered cheaper manufacture and superior sound. (Vinyl lovers will dispute the superior sound claims.)
    - jerf 5y ago
      Call CD sound "more accurate". Vinyl lovers historically loved vinyl precisely because they love the particular inaccuracy it imparts. CDs are more accurate. Brutally so at times, even. Especially when they're being really, really accurate at conveying clipping brought on by the loudness wars. (Now I suspect vinyl's main purpose in life is as a marker of being a discriminating consumer who doesn't want to be a victim of the loudness war, since you can't overdrive a vinyl record in the same way for physical reasons. It is unfortunate that one must go to such measures to opt out of "music that sounds like crap because you ruined it, you stupid music companies".)
  - goosedragons 5y ago
    Not in 1982. CD players were very expensive to manufacture and buy and making discs was harder too. Over time it got cheaper because a potato could do the decoding and the lasers got cheap and economies of scale allowed it. But at first it was very expensive, discs cost like twice as much as vinyl albums. A record player is mechanically and electrically much simpler. And vinyl disks are just pressed vinyl. You can buy a toy kit to build a record player, a CD player is just too complicated.
    - merb 5y ago
      > You can buy a toy kit to build a record player, a CD player is just too complicated. you don't need a toy kit, to get sound of a vinyl. but yes it's basically impossible to build a laser and tech to read cd-da and than get audio from it... well there is https://www.theaudioeagle.com/columns/column07.html https://www.theaudioeagle.com/columns/column07.html but you need a dac and a cdm device, vinyl only needs paper and pencil (fun fact a guy from r&d of dts showed that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaqmdcaF87w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaqmdcaF87w)
- nradov 5y ago
  Apparently vinyl records have now surpassed CDs in sales. https://qz.com/2111339/vinyl-outsold-cds-in-the-us-for-the-first-time-since-the-1980s/ https://qz.com/2111339/vinyl-outsold-cds-in-the-us-for-the-f...
  - junon 5y ago
    Not for any practical reason, though. CDs were the epitome of practical. They're not vintage enough for them to be cool yet. Give it a while longer and CDs will have fallen so far out of the public eye that they'll become a niche once again and people will be scouring to find old 98 Degrees CDs.
    - saalweachter 5y ago
      Don't CDs have relatively short shelf lives? Not as bad as floppies, but still -- will people be able to take 50 year old CDs and spin them up?
      - tenebrisalietum 5y ago
        Recordable ones use dyes which fade if exposed to sunlight and temperature. The pits that represent data in factory manufactured discs are laser etched, so if the polycarbonate layer doesn't decay in 50 years it should be OK. Betting they would as long as kept from moisture. Even if the reflective layer is compromised I think it would somehow be possible to reapply it to the polycarbonate layer which has the pits. Below is an excerpt from https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/sec4/#:~:text=Among%20the%20manufacturers%20that%20have,of%2025%20years%20or%20more https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/sec4/#:~:text=Among....: CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs are similar in that they are replicated discs-that is, the data are physically pressed into the disc when it is manufactured. ROMs are generally mass-produced and contain music, video, computer applications, or interactive games. ROM disc longevity is determined by the extent to which its aluminum layer is exposed to oxygen. Oxygen, including pollutants, can migrate through the polycarbonate layer or the hard lacquer layer (CD label side and edge), carried in by moisture. Oxygen or moisture can more easily penetrate through scratches, cracks, or delaminated areas in the label. Oxygen can also be trapped inside the disc during manufacturing, although manufacturing improvements have reduced the likelihood of this. If left in a very humid environment, moisture-and oxygen-will eventually reach the aluminum, causing it to lose its reflectivity. The normally shiny aluminum, which resembles silver, becomes oxide-dull and much less reflective, like the color of a typical aluminum ladder. The combination of high humidity and increased temperatures will accelerate the oxidation rate. The life expectancy of a ROM disc therefore depends on the environmental conditions to which it is exposed over time. Generally, it is best to keep ROM discs in a dry, cool environment. If the disc is removed from a humid, hot environment to an ideal condition before damage has been done, it will “dry out” and should be as playable as if it had been kept in ideal conditions all along. Other contaminates, however, such as inks, solvents, and pollutants, have the potential to irreversibly penetrate and to deform, discolor, or corrode the disc, causing permanent reading problems for the laser.
- loudmax 5y ago
  I don't know that compact discs were more expensive to produce than vinyl or cassettes. I'm sure they were at first, but costs must have come down drastically by the time you could buy big spools of RW+ CDs at Best Buy for $20. CDs are smaller than vinyl records, so that brings down shipping costs. From a consumer's perspective vinyl records require a lot of maintenance: needles need to be changed, records should be kept free from dust. Cassettes are small, but complicated. I wouldn't be surprised if cassettes are more expensive to produce than compact discs. It is interesting that while CDs overtook cassette tapes in the 90's (aside from mixed tapes shared between friends), Laser Discs didn't become more popular than VHS until DVDs. Maybe the difference in visual quality wasn't worth the effort to switch media until televisions became larger larger and sharper.
  - prionassembly 5y ago
    > more expensive There's pressing a flat circle in a factory somewhere, and there's - printing album art, making sleeves, etc. - storage - distribution - retail space - "shrinkage" (ok, stealing a CD is easier) - ... ?
darkerside 5y ago
Ipod over walkman?
- darkerside 5y ago
  Can someone seriously explain why this is getting downvotes?
  - loudmax 5y ago
    On HN it's generally considered bad form to dispute downvotes. IMHO there's nothing wrong with your original comment, except perhaps brevity. Maybe somebody was of the opinion that you needed to make the argument that a Walkman is simpler than an iPod.
    - justinpowers 5y ago
      I’m not deep enough into the culture to know whether disputing, or simply asking for explanation, of a downvote is “bad form”, but i would bet that using downvotes as an alternative to a cogent rebuttal is considered “worse form”. And there’s no way to counter it except to do as gp did and call it out, asking for explanation. Unfortunately the downvoter is unlikely to ever offer an explanation. So the gp and others like him (myself at times) relies on the crowd to figure out whether or not there’s a misunderstanding. Discouraging that, when the downvote is seemingly arbitrary, doesn’t help the situation at all. How else can a downvoted commenter, and bystanders, learn?
      - darkerside 5y ago
        Thanks for understanding. Not disputing it, just bothering to understand if I can.
  - Someone1234 5y ago
    Disclaimer: didn’t downvote. Because it contrasts something from 1979 with something from 2001 and fails to explain how this is a relevant example for the discussion.
aqsalose 5y ago
"Technologically superior" is kind of relative to comparison group. As a consumer who does not enjoy particularly high salary, "is it affordable" is an important consideration when buying any technological product. What do I mean when I say "relative to"? When DVD became available, people bought DVD players, which were superior to VHS. And TV+VHS was a superior technology compared TV alone. And TV displays have become much better than they were when VHS was brand new.
aardvarkr 5y ago
Blu-ray over hd DVD is the first thing that comes to mind
user_7832 5y ago
Not really "winning" per se, but lossless audio is fortunately seeing an improvement over the last few years. It's become a minor selling point on online streaming services (Spotify, Apple music, Deezer etc all provide some level of lossless music). Services like Tidal explicitly advertise themselves as high quality. Apparently as long as you can market it people will buy it and it will improve :') (See also: improvements in audio sstreaming codecs to Bluetooth headphones in the last few years)
- SSLy 5y ago
  Spotify has nothing lossless in offer (yet)
  - user_7832 5y ago
    Sorry, my bad. I mainly use Deezer (which has FLAC).
SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
I think you need to caveat that as within the same timeframe, lots of examples people are coming up with is technology coming out AFTER - blu ray triumphed over dvd because it was a later and better technology. CD triumphed over tapes in the same way and neither of these examples were cheaper when they first came out.
- kryptiskt 5y ago
  Bluray did decisively win over its contemporary rival HD-DVD.
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    Was Bluray technologically superior and more expensive? I don't remember that being the case, but it may have been. I think the ubiquity of the PS3 was the decider for that generation, so I guess, if it was more expensive, it's a decent example.
    - Zandikar 5y ago
      Bluray was generally superior yes. It wasn't flat out better in all ways, but it was at least on parity if not better to HD-DVD. Cost wise, it depends on what exactly we're talking about (Cost of disc, cost of licensing, etc), but blu ray succeeded largely due to Sony willing to take an estimated ~$3B loss on the hardware sales of the PS3 and leverage it's media partnerships to see the format succeed in the long term. Selling the PS3 at a deficit was instrumental in getting BluRay players into peoples homes en-masse, which then in turn allowed Sony to better negotiate media partners to use their format. So was it cheaper? No, I don't think so, but Sony was willing to eat a loss to make it "cheaper" for the end consumer. Technically, people paid more for a bluray than for an HD-DVD player, as a PS3 was definitely more expensive than a standalone player/drive for either, but the value proposition was definitely there, as many people wanted a PS3 regardless. In short, the value was there, both for the media companies and end consumers, for bluray as opposed to HD-DVD, but I'm not sure it was explicitly "cheaper".

open-source-ux 5y ago

The audio CD surpassed sales of vinyl records and cassettes. CDs arguably offer better sound (subjective I know) over vinyl and cassettes.

yvrev 5y ago
I'm going out on a limb here but wouldn't CD's be both cheaper and simpler to manufacture too?
- open-source-ux 5y ago
  You're probably correct. That means the audio CD offered cheaper manufacture and superior sound. (Vinyl lovers will dispute the superior sound claims.)
  - jerf 5y ago
    Call CD sound "more accurate". Vinyl lovers historically loved vinyl precisely because they love the particular inaccuracy it imparts. CDs are more accurate. Brutally so at times, even. Especially when they're being really, really accurate at conveying clipping brought on by the loudness wars. (Now I suspect vinyl's main purpose in life is as a marker of being a discriminating consumer who doesn't want to be a victim of the loudness war, since you can't overdrive a vinyl record in the same way for physical reasons. It is unfortunate that one must go to such measures to opt out of "music that sounds like crap because you ruined it, you stupid music companies".)
- goosedragons 5y ago
  Not in 1982. CD players were very expensive to manufacture and buy and making discs was harder too. Over time it got cheaper because a potato could do the decoding and the lasers got cheap and economies of scale allowed it. But at first it was very expensive, discs cost like twice as much as vinyl albums. A record player is mechanically and electrically much simpler. And vinyl disks are just pressed vinyl. You can buy a toy kit to build a record player, a CD player is just too complicated.
  - merb 5y ago
    > You can buy a toy kit to build a record player, a CD player is just too complicated. you don't need a toy kit, to get sound of a vinyl. but yes it's basically impossible to build a laser and tech to read cd-da and than get audio from it... well there is https://www.theaudioeagle.com/columns/column07.html https://www.theaudioeagle.com/columns/column07.html but you need a dac and a cdm device, vinyl only needs paper and pencil (fun fact a guy from r&d of dts showed that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaqmdcaF87w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaqmdcaF87w)
nradov 5y ago
Apparently vinyl records have now surpassed CDs in sales. https://qz.com/2111339/vinyl-outsold-cds-in-the-us-for-the-first-time-since-the-1980s/ https://qz.com/2111339/vinyl-outsold-cds-in-the-us-for-the-f...
- junon 5y ago
  Not for any practical reason, though. CDs were the epitome of practical. They're not vintage enough for them to be cool yet. Give it a while longer and CDs will have fallen so far out of the public eye that they'll become a niche once again and people will be scouring to find old 98 Degrees CDs.
  - saalweachter 5y ago
    Don't CDs have relatively short shelf lives? Not as bad as floppies, but still -- will people be able to take 50 year old CDs and spin them up?
    - tenebrisalietum 5y ago
      Recordable ones use dyes which fade if exposed to sunlight and temperature. The pits that represent data in factory manufactured discs are laser etched, so if the polycarbonate layer doesn't decay in 50 years it should be OK. Betting they would as long as kept from moisture. Even if the reflective layer is compromised I think it would somehow be possible to reapply it to the polycarbonate layer which has the pits. Below is an excerpt from https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/sec4/#:~:text=Among%20the%20manufacturers%20that%20have,of%2025%20years%20or%20more https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/sec4/#:~:text=Among....: CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs are similar in that they are replicated discs-that is, the data are physically pressed into the disc when it is manufactured. ROMs are generally mass-produced and contain music, video, computer applications, or interactive games. ROM disc longevity is determined by the extent to which its aluminum layer is exposed to oxygen. Oxygen, including pollutants, can migrate through the polycarbonate layer or the hard lacquer layer (CD label side and edge), carried in by moisture. Oxygen or moisture can more easily penetrate through scratches, cracks, or delaminated areas in the label. Oxygen can also be trapped inside the disc during manufacturing, although manufacturing improvements have reduced the likelihood of this. If left in a very humid environment, moisture-and oxygen-will eventually reach the aluminum, causing it to lose its reflectivity. The normally shiny aluminum, which resembles silver, becomes oxide-dull and much less reflective, like the color of a typical aluminum ladder. The combination of high humidity and increased temperatures will accelerate the oxidation rate. The life expectancy of a ROM disc therefore depends on the environmental conditions to which it is exposed over time. Generally, it is best to keep ROM discs in a dry, cool environment. If the disc is removed from a humid, hot environment to an ideal condition before damage has been done, it will “dry out” and should be as playable as if it had been kept in ideal conditions all along. Other contaminates, however, such as inks, solvents, and pollutants, have the potential to irreversibly penetrate and to deform, discolor, or corrode the disc, causing permanent reading problems for the laser.
loudmax 5y ago
I don't know that compact discs were more expensive to produce than vinyl or cassettes. I'm sure they were at first, but costs must have come down drastically by the time you could buy big spools of RW+ CDs at Best Buy for $20. CDs are smaller than vinyl records, so that brings down shipping costs. From a consumer's perspective vinyl records require a lot of maintenance: needles need to be changed, records should be kept free from dust. Cassettes are small, but complicated. I wouldn't be surprised if cassettes are more expensive to produce than compact discs. It is interesting that while CDs overtook cassette tapes in the 90's (aside from mixed tapes shared between friends), Laser Discs didn't become more popular than VHS until DVDs. Maybe the difference in visual quality wasn't worth the effort to switch media until televisions became larger larger and sharper.
- prionassembly 5y ago
  > more expensive There's pressing a flat circle in a factory somewhere, and there's - printing album art, making sleeves, etc. - storage - distribution - retail space - "shrinkage" (ok, stealing a CD is easier) - ... ?

darkerside 5y ago

Ipod over walkman?

darkerside 5y ago
Can someone seriously explain why this is getting downvotes?
- loudmax 5y ago
  On HN it's generally considered bad form to dispute downvotes. IMHO there's nothing wrong with your original comment, except perhaps brevity. Maybe somebody was of the opinion that you needed to make the argument that a Walkman is simpler than an iPod.
  - justinpowers 5y ago
    I’m not deep enough into the culture to know whether disputing, or simply asking for explanation, of a downvote is “bad form”, but i would bet that using downvotes as an alternative to a cogent rebuttal is considered “worse form”. And there’s no way to counter it except to do as gp did and call it out, asking for explanation. Unfortunately the downvoter is unlikely to ever offer an explanation. So the gp and others like him (myself at times) relies on the crowd to figure out whether or not there’s a misunderstanding. Discouraging that, when the downvote is seemingly arbitrary, doesn’t help the situation at all. How else can a downvoted commenter, and bystanders, learn?
    - darkerside 5y ago
      Thanks for understanding. Not disputing it, just bothering to understand if I can.
- Someone1234 5y ago
  Disclaimer: didn’t downvote. Because it contrasts something from 1979 with something from 2001 and fails to explain how this is a relevant example for the discussion.

aqsalose 5y ago

"Technologically superior" is kind of relative to comparison group. As a consumer who does not enjoy particularly high salary, "is it affordable" is an important consideration when buying any technological product. What do I mean when I say "relative to"? When DVD became available, people bought DVD players, which were superior to VHS. And TV+VHS was a superior technology compared TV alone. And TV displays have become much better than they were when VHS was brand new.

aardvarkr 5y ago

Blu-ray over hd DVD is the first thing that comes to mind

user_7832 5y ago

Not really "winning" per se, but lossless audio is fortunately seeing an improvement over the last few years. It's become a minor selling point on online streaming services (Spotify, Apple music, Deezer etc all provide some level of lossless music). Services like Tidal explicitly advertise themselves as high quality. Apparently as long as you can market it people will buy it and it will improve :') (See also: improvements in audio sstreaming codecs to Bluetooth headphones in the last few years)

SSLy 5y ago
Spotify has nothing lossless in offer (yet)
- user_7832 5y ago
  Sorry, my bad. I mainly use Deezer (which has FLAC).

SketchySeaBeast 5y ago

I think you need to caveat that as within the same timeframe, lots of examples people are coming up with is technology coming out AFTER - blu ray triumphed over dvd because it was a later and better technology. CD triumphed over tapes in the same way and neither of these examples were cheaper when they first came out.

kryptiskt 5y ago
Bluray did decisively win over its contemporary rival HD-DVD.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  Was Bluray technologically superior and more expensive? I don't remember that being the case, but it may have been. I think the ubiquity of the PS3 was the decider for that generation, so I guess, if it was more expensive, it's a decent example.
  - Zandikar 5y ago
    Bluray was generally superior yes. It wasn't flat out better in all ways, but it was at least on parity if not better to HD-DVD. Cost wise, it depends on what exactly we're talking about (Cost of disc, cost of licensing, etc), but blu ray succeeded largely due to Sony willing to take an estimated ~$3B loss on the hardware sales of the PS3 and leverage it's media partnerships to see the format succeed in the long term. Selling the PS3 at a deficit was instrumental in getting BluRay players into peoples homes en-masse, which then in turn allowed Sony to better negotiate media partners to use their format. So was it cheaper? No, I don't think so, but Sony was willing to eat a loss to make it "cheaper" for the end consumer. Technically, people paid more for a bluray than for an HD-DVD player, as a PS3 was definitely more expensive than a standalone player/drive for either, but the value proposition was definitely there, as many people wanted a PS3 regardless. In short, the value was there, both for the media companies and end consumers, for bluray as opposed to HD-DVD, but I'm not sure it was explicitly "cheaper".