What Part of 'Betamax' Don't You People Understand?

by Mr. Bad

1999-09-13 23:51:17

Laughable Technology

OK, folks, I'm just really amazed that this needs to be said, but here it goes: nobody wants Sony minidiscs. They're useless little slabs of plastic and thin film. It's a stupid and proprietary storage medium and they just suck.

Whoever is the SENIOR EXTRA VICE PRESIDENT in charge of MINIDISC TECHNOLOGY should just commit really gruesome ritual suicide right NOW. On the STREETS of TOKYO in BROAD DAYLIGHT. JESUS FUCK, man! d00d, it's just going NOWHERE. Despite the fact that you are buying kajillions of dollars worth of American radio and TV airtime for your dumb and frankly annoying minidisc commercials I have NEVER seen a real live human being handling a fucking Sony minidisc.

I'm not just some bumblefuck from East Nowhere, Ioway, either. I live in the FUCKING SILICON JUNGLE of SAN FRANCISCO where folks with JAGUARS buy useless Japanese technology ALL THE FUCKING TIME just to show that they're big digerati and shit and that they have way too much money. Or where folks with tape on their glasses buy stuff in bins just to take it apart and see how it works. Or, conversely, where bad kids in cafes use their E profits to buy magic amulets to show that they're big ol' cyberpunks or whatever.

I guess what I'm saying is that I know the DILETTANTES, the HOBBYISTS and the TRUE BELIEVERS and not ONE of these early adopter groups thinks your minidisc technology is worth a GOOD GODDAMN. I have NEVER SEEN a MINIDISC, man. NEVER.

I got to admit that I admired your sticktuitiveness at first. How long have you had these little pieces of crap going, like 8-9 years, right? And NOBODY BUYS THEM. But you keep having COMMERCIALS and ads in W I R E D that say, like, "INTRODUCING the Sony minidisc." Like it's not the SAME FUCKING MINIDISC that you introduced in 1997 and 1994. Jesus! Just GIVE IT UP. You're EMBARASSING YOURSELVES.

It's just IMPOSSIBLE to get this idea through to you people, though, isn't it? You kept up that FARCE of BETAMAX for, like, 15 years or something. That one was just DUMB. After 1982 NOBODY HAD A BETAMAX, but they kept stocking beta tapes in the video stores for god knows what reasons. I personally think it was PRESSURE from the YAKUZA, but that's just me.

It's OK to make a mistake, Sony. Everyone makes mistakes. The thing is to realize your mistakes and move on, not to DRAG your HUMILIATING STUPID IDIOTIC IDEA around for YEARS AND YEARS out in the open where everyone can see, like some kind of DROOLING PARASITIC TWIN attached at the TORSO. It's just GROSS. QUIT IT. Sell all your back stock to the Korean military, take it as a loss on your books, and drop the FUCKING SUBJECT already. Christ!

Check it out yourself

oarsman@pigdog.org