HD DVD or Blu-ray? Even the Porn Industry Won't Touch It
It's a dirty little secret that's not all that dirty (or secretive) for those who follow technology trends. The porn, or "adult industry" ?to use today's preferred nomenclature?tends to serve as something of an oracle when it comes to predicting which technologies eventually make their way into the marketplace and which ones don't. If you want to know where consumer technology is heading, look to porno and war, or so the axiom goes.
Twenty-five years ago, it was the adult industry that played a major role in shaping the future of American home entertainment, at least for the following 15 years or so. Suffering from stagnant theater and video-booth revenues, the industry made a bold decision to shift toward a new method for distributing its content. In the process, porno cozied up to a budding VHS format in lieu of what many considered to be its superior Betamax cousin. Granted, Sony (the progenitor of Betamax) had a lot to do with that ultimate decision, essentially refusing to let its burgeoning format be sullied by pornography hawkers. But nevertheless, when the adult industry gave the thumbs up to VHS, the result of the format war was pretty much a foregone conclusion.
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