[mythtv-users] Cheap SCSI scanners - was:The Bigger... Disk contest, Fall 2007 edition

[Calvin Dodge]

On 10/20/07, Brian Wood <beww at beww.org> wrote:

> It seems the manufacturers, at least of consumer gear, will always
> choose the worst solution: VHS over Beta, USB over Firewire, IDE over
> SCSI, NTSC over PAL (at least in the USA), 802.11B/G over 802.11A etc.

Define "worst".  For at least 3 of those examples, there were
financial and/or consumer preference interests at work which
outweighed the qualities of the "better" standard.

VHS won out over Beta because it was available in a higher capacity
(longer play length) and the difference in display quality wasn't
important enough to the average consumer.

USB won because Apple wanted excessive (in the view of other
manufacturers) royalties for Firewire.

IDE was (and still is) far less expensive, as well as requiring less
power for the interface.  Tell someone that for $250 they can have a
73 gig SCSI drive or a 750 gig SATA drive, and see which one they
choose. Note that even Apple - which generally chose profit margin and
"coolness" over market share - eventually dumped SCSI in favor of IDE.

Firewire and SCSI devices are still available right now - but they're
more expensive, and that's the deciding factor for most people. So
even though they're better, for most applications they're not
_competitive_. That's not due to a conspiracy of PHB-headed
manufacturers - it's because the average person considers price when
buying an item, and the manufacturers are responding to that attitude.

But you are free to buy the "better" - and more expensive - item
(which is why my most recent car purchase was a used Honda, even
though other makes were available at a much lower initial cost).

Calvin