The Tale of the Tape: Standards, Path Dependency and the Trendy Consumer

This paper explores the role that standards play in the consumption of technological goods through a re-appraisal of the battle between VHS and Beta video cassette recorders in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A richer picture of the consumer -- the "trendy consumer" -- is introduced as an alternate explanation for the development of increasing returns to adoption of standardized consumer electronics platforms. The trendy consumer highlights the importance of consumer dynamics in determining whether the winner of a standards battle will lock-in the market.;The trendy consumer is not attracted to devices (e.g. a VCR) so much as to the complementary goods and services offered as part of the platform (e.g. movies for sale and for rent). The importance of standards as providers of the stability is highlighted as a necessary precursor to the formation of complementary goods and services that attract the trendy consumer to the platform.