All right, I'm tired of playing around with you.
Ascended_Saiyan3 said:
"Average Joe" mainly move on price, when it comes to technology.
You are so wrong that you are parodying yourself if you think that price is the primary factor that drives the public - that's not the primary deciding factor of any consumer whatsoever. This is seriously Econ 110 stuff, here, Microeconomics in 10 Easy Steps.
Any time a consumer makes a purchasing decision they are going to make a value loss comparison, wherein they are willing to sacrifice a certain amount of value according to price, yes, and it may be assumed that the amount of value that they are willing to sacrifice is equal to or greater than the price differential between the two choices. Price is only one factor of this, and it is the most visible but this is only because it is the only one which is readily quantifiable. In any purchasing decision the consumer is going to make a choice based on a set of values known primarily to themselves, and which they themselves are typically unable to quantify, but it is a question of valuee before it is a question of price. People adopted DVD when it came time that the advantages conferred by it rose above the base value that they were willing to pay extra for - it's a question of value. People bought DVDs because it was valuable, not because it was cheap.
Following me so far? I hope so, because the entire conversation hinges on that point.
Therefore, the options are removed by the audio/videophiles (hence the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray HD format war).
Yes, this is true, but only insofar as it removes upstream options by culling out the weaker ons - it has nothing to do with how people end up choosing the "higher quality" option over the currently incumbent one. Current buying trends indicate that people will end up choosing blu-ray over DV at some point, but it's entirely feasible that this may not have happened and that Blu-Ray would be dead in the water. Don't confuse the format wars which occurred between the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray with the format wars which are happening right now between Blu-Ray and DVD, because one is deciding which format will go up against the incumbent and the other is the actual struggle to replace the incumbent.
The difference here is a question of demographics but it is still one of values: the videophiles and audiophiles ended up choosing Blu-Ray over HD-DVD because they made a value judgement versus the price difference between the two formats. The average consumer is slowly making that choice between DVD and Blu-Ray, but while this is also a question of value versus price difference it is operating off of very different value sets: people do not really care about increased image quality in situations where they cannot experience these: yes they will choose Blu-Ray for ten dollars more, but that is only going to be the case when people see a value difference that justifies the extra ten bucks. Right now they don't see it, because for most people DVD really is all they need. This will change in time as HD adoption continues and it will be aided by the backwards compatibility of Blu-Ray players with their existing collections, but, again, it is feasible that the values of the given market may not be compatible with this shift and it might never happen at all. If people's values shifted en masse in another direction, say to digital distribution (don't jump on this, it is a hypothetical), then Blu-Ray would crash and burn due to the fact that it fails to live up to the values of the consumer.
That's how buying works.
After that, manufacturers take over by slowly converting them over to that technology by lowering prices.
Excuse me, this has been coming for a while.
If the value of the product doesn't match the values of the consumers then it will
never take off despite the best efforts of the manufacturers! This is true of
every single consumer good, from DVD to blu-ray to televisions to backpacks to milk to cheese to the Xbox 360. When people find superior value in alternative products, especially incumbent ones, they will never choose a product off inferior value regardless of how much lower its price is.
What "average Joe" would buy a DVD player that's only $10 or so less than a Blu-ray player that plays DVDs AND Blu-rays?
Obviously one who doesn't see the value increase as being greater than the price differential. Ha-duh? This is true for the majority of consumers at the moment, though I expect that this number is naturally going to go down over time. The point, though, is that producers have no way of controlling these trends.
The same thing happens for the Hollywood studios. Have you noticed how they are beginning to devalue their older DVDs in light of DVD's slipping revenue?
Naturally, but this isn't a trend that Hollywood can set for itself. You are placing the agency of the shift in consumer trends in the hands of the producers, which is so ass-backwards as to be literally insulting.
Hollywood is devaluing DVDs because the consumer is buying less of them. The impetus for any change in production trends is buying trends, not the other way around. Any producer who hopes to introduce a new format has to hop that the buying trends will respond in such a way that the new production will b able to appeal to consumer values. Blu-Ray has gotten lucky. Many other formats do not.
You can't fight it. It's the way of the world.
I think your grasp on the "way of the world" is tenuous, at best, when it is referring to what dictates buying trends. Oversimplification or no, your argument is so full of holes that it's embarrassing that I had to make a reply this long to get my point across.
