Everyone gets the wrong idea from the Betamax vs VHS thing. The correct lesson to learn is to actually solve the problems people have. VHS could record an entire football game on one tape. Betamax couldn't, because they prioritized video quality over recording length. They bet wrong; consumers prioritized recording length over video quality, because a mediocre picture of 100% of the thing they wanted to watch beat a better picture of 60% of the thing they wanted to watch.
And yet everyone turns Beta vs VHS into a sob story about how the best doesn't always win, instead of figuring out the real lesson: know what your customers want and give it to them.
I thought the reason Betamax didn't succeed was that Sony required deals to release things on their format, and it turned out a lot of people wanted videocassettes for porn?
