Red Queens and the End-Game

Red Queen technological emergence is focused on the struggle of two technologies for dominance. (Thornburg, D., 2008). Dr. Thornburg described the rapid development and product enhancements that would result in the struggle. He noted the similarity to the Red Queen’s admonition that Alice needed to run as fast as she could to stay in the same place and twice as fast to get somewhere else. In this case, the rush is to market and product or technology superiority.  Using a chess game as an analogy, DVDs may be in their end game with checkmate in sight.

For our class, I borrowed the video we needed to see from the library. It was free, and the DVD format worked with our TV and PCs. Video on Demand (VOD) was not available for these videos at the library. I would have needed to “rent” or buy it from a VOD distributor. 

I would classify the current struggle between DVDs and VOD as a Red Queen struggle with overtones of an evolutionary technology emergence. In an earlier Blog entry, I described the competition between Software as a Product (SaaP) and Software as a Service (SaaS). SaaS evolved from SaaP and is now in a competition for dominance. DVDs are like a SaaP product. DVDs require purchase of a hardware product. Storage, packaging, distribution, and returns all contribute to the cost for the product. Video on Demand is stored digitally, can be rented or downloaded, and only requires a web site to package and sell it. Arthur (1996) described increasing returns as the tendency for a technology with the lead in a struggle to “run faster” while the weaker technology falls behind.  VOD is displaying increasing returns in the market.

If I were to construct a merged McLuhan Tetrad for DVDs and VOD it would look like this

Thornburg, D. (2008c). Red Queens, butterflies, and strange attractors: Imperfect lenses into emergent technologies. Lake Barrington, IL: Thornburg Center for Space Exploration.

Arthur, W. B. (1996). Increasing returns and the new world of business. Harvard Business Review, 74(4), 100−109. Retrieved from the Business Source Complete database.