If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I have heard that in the late 70s – vinyl records had about 90% of the market share.  Cassette tapes could not compete since they didn’t match the high-fidelity experience of vinyl.

Image via Wikipedia

Enter the Sony Walkman – a convenient, portable way to experience music.    Sure it required cassette tapes and a corresponding drop in fidelity but within a few years  the market share of cassette tapes exceeded vinyl.   People wanted to take their music with them – and the loss of quality was a small price to pay for the convenience of songs in your pocket.

I was reminded of this story just a few short weeks ago as I sat in a posh advertsing office in Milan drinking espresso from a vending machine…  Sadly the culture that brought you peerless coffee and never deigned to offer a to-go cup  had given way to the quick hit convenience of push-button caffeine delivered by an automaton.

If I didn’t need that caffeine so badly it would have been heartbreaking… As it was, I barely gave it a moment’s thought.

It did make me wonder how often we fool ourselves that the game we are in (whatever that business endeavor might be) is about quality while ignoring the competitor waiting to eat our lunch with convenience.