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The Sardine is depressed.
L-I P: What's wrong?
Recently I read an article about the marketplace battle between VHS and Beta recording systems back in the late Seventies.
L-I P: What happened to the Beta players?
Well, I assumed the Betamax had fallen to the wayside like many other failed inferior products. Like the Edsel and the movie Heaven's Gate. That is, marketplace values held firm and the superior product triumphed. Like the Chevy Vega and Love Story.
L-I P: Where's your "majority is always wrong" theory when you need it?
As it turned out, the VHS recorders were only outselling Beta by a small margin. And most experts agreed that BETA was the superior product. Not by much, but better.
L-I P: Supply and demand. There was no demand for Betas, therefore the supply dried up. What's unusual about that?
51% to 49%. 52 to 48! That's not much of a lead, but from that VHS's share went to 55% and 60%. Then Beta was doomed.
L-I P: What could you possibly object to? VHS won fairly.
Fair or not, VHS's victory took the shape of an economic law.
L-I P: As we've been telling you.
No, not supply and demand. The Law of Increasing Returns.
L-I P: Oh, you mean the law of Diminishing Returns. That's something different. When too much of a good thing isn't as good as it used to be.
Increasing Returns! It supercedes Diminishing Returns as a major economic law.
L-I P: Listen to the Economics professor who probably never had an economics course in his life.
Increasing Returns is a more powerful process for creating and dominating a share of the market. Bill Gates and Microsoft used that very strategy to secure the computer field.
L-I P: One of our heroes. Anyway, why the heck should that law depress you?
I think the same law applies to History.
L-I P: How?
Election after election in the 1920s in Germany the Nazi Party increased its vote total.
L-I P: So?
When VHS had its smallest lead over Beta, the effect, at first nearly imperceptible, was a move by retailers to stock more VHS machines and tapes. A ripple at first, not a flood. But after a year or two of this movement toward VHS and away from Beta -- having nothing to do with quality and everything with the merchants' perception of what people wanted -- the availability of Betas decreased, which furthered consumer demand for VHS, thus confirming the perception!
L-I P: Phew!!
There was an increased pressure to go to VHS strictly for convenience. A mindset formed. Betas were unavailable. Why? Because no one wanted them. Why weren't they wanted? Because fewer and fewer retailers stocked Beta tapes or sold the machines.
L-I P: People wanted VHS.
No, they couldn't get Betas. Just as the increase in Nazi votes came from a perception that there was no alternative. A perception created by the Nazi's opponents, I might add.
L-I P: Survival of the fittest. The people got what they deserved. VHS taping systems and the Nazis. Are you afraid your column will go the way of the Betamax video machine? It probably has nothing to do with the Nazis.
I can live with the fact that readers reject me. Editors' decisions are based too much on what it thinks the public wants, not realizing how it shapes the public's desires by that very decision.
L-I P: They know the market. The public can't be bothered to be harassed and irritated all the time.
Like the Germans, you want the decisions made for you.
L-I P: Wait, aren't you the one who belongs to the League of Non-Voters? You don't think it matters who people vote for. You can't comment on what the German voters decided.
At some point someone has to choose something.
L-I P: But when the majority of readers think you're worth reading, by your own definition, your opinions will be wrong!
That's why I'm depressed.
L-I P: You're really afraid the increasing amount of readers returning to your column will ruin you. You can't be scared of success.
If it ever reaches that extreme, when the column is accepted by hundreds of papers and other media want to interview me and find out WHAT I REALLY THINK....That's when I'll know to get out of this business.
L-I P: You have to think about what others might want before you make that decision.
Who?
L-I P: Your friends. Wal-terr, Frank Weathers, Father Grindgrad, McNulty, even Honey (although we hear she's not talking to you anymore). US!! We helped make the column what it was. You gave us a reason to exist.
I'll stop the column as soon as a flicker of fame brightens any part of this enterprise.
L-I P: You're sick. We're your family. We have a stake in your success. It would kill Frank, in particular. But your readers most of all. You owe them to continue. Forever, if need be.
It's imperative that the column doesn't become too big. I'm a Sardine and I'll always be one. I've no wish to be a whale or a shark. A whale can't live on a sardine's diet. Nor can a sardine eat like a shark nor make waves like a whale.
I was reading a diary of a European writer who had an interesting thesis on Hitler's policies. When he was a politician among other politicians, Hitler could be anything; nothing was expected of him. When the increased Nazi returns got him into power, he couldn't back down from his program or even modify it (if he were inclined to). More, he had to surpass what he had been saying.
L-I P: This is a column; it's not going to affect the world.
When the politician retailers stocked their shelves with Nazi products, there was no way to return to the Betamax ideals. There was only one way to go.
L-I P: Okay, okay, we believe you. You're a fish of principle.
I'll stop writing at the very moment I'm successful.
The Sardine's essays, articles, and stories have appeared around the Internet in the last few years at 3 A.M., Facets, Eclectica magazine, Fiction Funhouse, The Fiction Warehouse, 5_trope, and several film journals. Who and what he is probably will be revealed at various points through the articles appearing at this site. The first fifteen installments of his saga can be viewed at the old Unlikely Stories.