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DVD wasn't the first potential successor to VHS. Remember? LaserDisc was. It was supported by videophils too. It still crashed and burned.

Betamax was the choice of video and audiophiles for its superior sound and image quality. VHS curb-stomped it anyway because Joe Average decided it was easier to deal with VHS' tracking and non-tape-eating playerrs.

DVD Audio was the choice of audiophiles as the successor to the CD. Never got off the ground because right when it got to the point where it could have, people discovered MP3s, a decidedly inferior but much easier to use, cheaper, and smaller format.

I expect Blu-Ray will win over DVD in the future. It's inevitable at this point. If you think I'm arguing otherwise, you are missing my point spectacularly. The market shift is already happening. But if you think it's because "videophile" is necessarily synonymous with "early adopter", you are forgetting the burning corpses of every "superior" medium which Joe Average left smoldering in his wake, uncared for and largely unnoticed.