Re: Inferior vs. superior.

[Leslie Bialler lb136@xxxxxxxx]

Michael Edwards wrote:

>
>   It doesn't seem to me to be an open question. I'm sure it happens all the
> time that an inferior product wins out. Qwerty would seem to be an example.

I have read that the Qwerty keyboard was designed that way so that the keys on the
late-19th-century machines would not stick together. Supposedly, letters commonly
used together would be on opposite sides of the keyboard. A perusal of the
keyboard, however, will quickly show you this must be a legend. You will not fail
to note, for example, that the e and the r are side by side. You will note too that
while the q and the z are designed to be used by the left pinkie, so is the a,
which makes no sense whatsoever, and that the aforementioned er combo is worked by
the left hand also. Indeed, the most frequently used letters, e, t, a, r, s, are
all on the left-hand side of the keyboard. And the j and k (Scrabble players note)
are made with the right index and third finger, respectively.

Was the inventor of the qwerty keyboard, therefore, left-handed? That would not
fail to surprise me.


>
> Also the common cassette, VHS (so I've read), and Windows. They all seem to be
> inferior things that defeated superior alternatives that either existed
> previously or arose at about the same time.

Yes, Beta was supposed to be better than VHS, but there is a simple explanation for
VHS's victory. VHS played one hour longer than the Betas. It was that simple. The
superiority of the Beta was important only to techies and the elite. The public
wanted more bang for the buck. And recall, too, that originally it had been assumed
people would purchase videos. The mfgs. of the machines and tape didn't foresee
that most people would wish to rent.

>
>   In fact, in my more cynical moments, I wonder whether, if something is
> clearly superior, it is *less* likely to win in the end.
>

No. Superiority is in the eye of the beholder. To the end user the VHS was superior
because it played longer; the average user is used to the qwerty keyboard, bad as
it is, and sees no reason to change. Windows prevailed because it was the child of
DOS, and DOS prevailed over Apple because IBM was seen as a business person's tool
while Apple was perceived as, well, cute.

Indeed, if one now puts aside all prejudices and examines things afresh, one may
well (I say may--again this is in the eye of the beholder) come to the conclusion
that the Windows look and feel is now more attractive than that of the Cute Fruit.
IMHO the Windows desktop fonts are more attractive, the two-button mouse is far
superior. Indeed the Apple desktop, essentially unchanged in 16 years looks tired
and dated, and turning their boxes into blue Jubejubes helps not at all.

In short, these debates about why superior tech. doesn't always win out start with
what may well be a false assumption as to what the buying public considers
superior. Or why. And/or how much the buying public is willing to "retool." People
aren't dumb. They quickly saw that CDs were better than Vinyl and retooled. When
they were then told to replace their tape cassettes with DAT tape, they rebelled.

--
Leslie Bialler, Columbia University Press
lb136@xxxxxxxx
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