;)
You can get anything you want, as long as it's what everyone else wants
Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 06:34AM My mother, who grew up in the Soviet Union, always said that about the United States. So even when she came to this country, in the 50s, she was noticing the lack of a Long Tail. This wasn't Henry Ford producing Model Ts in only black, this was a general problem of production for small market segments.
We're supposed to be over that, aren't we? So why am I having so much trouble finding a non-widescreen monitor? My monitor stopped working yesterday, in the middle of actual dayjob work (I don't usually work from home, but my son broke his leg and needed someone in the house with him). A quick check with the laptop revealed a huge selection of big widescreen monitors at nice prices--one of which I eventually bought at a Staples around the corner.
I spend most of my time on this screen writing. A widescreen gives me lines that are too long to read comfortably. And I have no interest in having multiple windows visible--even single tasking puts a serious strain on my underpowered brain. Surely I'm not the only one who wants this. Why, then, is a simple portrait-orientation monitor suddenly so hard to find?
I felt the same way when, back in the days of PDAs, they all went color. I kept addresses, dates, and other such information on it. All color meant was that battery life went way down. Then, with cell phones, the same thing happened.
This isn't some kind of curmudgeonly "I liked it better before" thing--at least I don't think it is. It's a "why can't I buy it if I want it?" thing.
It's also a "is everyone else crazy?" thing. I would have guessed the market would be split into the two types, with work-oriented people getting one, and entertainment-oriented people getting the other. Does this show I would have failed in monitor marketing, or that I would have scored a success in an underserved market segment?
Just mark this market segment underserved.
Reader Comments (4)
Way back in the ancient days, after a year of being "served" by the same ISP, they changed their interface, requiring everyone to upgrade. One day I couldn't get anything through the connection. I called. The (even by voice) very young techie, with obvious weariness at yet another doofus who hadn't got the memo, started walking me through the upgrade---which required a change in the Windows program. "Put your Windows CD in and go to---"
"I don't have a Windows CD."
"'scuse me?"
"I'm working on a 386. I don't have a CD player."
"What do you mean you don't have a CD player?" he demanded indignantly. "WHAT ARE YOU DOIN' ON THE INTERNET THEN?"
I swear, he said that to me. I explained that everything had been working fine before they decided to upgrade probably half their customers out of their optimum and you know what, I have a 15 year old car and I can still put new, upgraded gasoline in it and it runs.
We are driven by nonconformist conformity---be "with it" is the cool thing, but no one seems to notice that it is also the same thing, so we are all independently in lock-step. The apparent freedom is to participate or not participate....but you don't get to participate differently.
re: portrait mode monitors - Interesting question! Google says that if you hit CTRL-ALT arrow-key, that the video card on most PCs will switch the monitor mode from landscape to portrait. Who knew? That's probably why they don't make them.
I think I have a solution. The CTRL-ALt arrow-key doesn't do anything, but an driver upgrade means my NVIDIA card will rotate the display. I've purchased a monitor stand that will rotate from landscape to portrait. So I will have a nice narrow, long display when I want, and a wide display when I want that. I'll let you all know how it works.
Damn! ctl-alt-arrow works for me. Life is good again.