Arguably in most cases these media formats needed to die. They were replaced by vastly superior products. Maybe I’m alone in this, but it seems that increasingly I’m seeing new formats that might be better in small ways but that we’re really encouraged to adopt solely because they’re new.
Granted most of these changes are coming in the form of software “upgrades”. For instance the difference between my iPhone iOS 6 and 7 seems to be largely aesthetic–and one I’d undo if I could. But what happens when, for instance, Amazon stops supporting earlier versions of the Kindle, making it impossible to read new books on them, even if the new models are basically the same thing with an extra bell or whistle? These new formats are pushed because they’re new, even if they aren’t better, and with little if any thought about the impact of constant change.
The series coda should give us pause.
