Tech (sorta): Format Wars

One thing I've realized in my antitrust law studies is that battles over industry standards are often, in the long run, beneficial to consumers. The recent skirmish over high-definition disc formats is a good example - while someone who bought an HD-DVD player for their Xbox 360 is certainly going to feel a little betrayed, the long fight allowed consumers to fully shake out any flaws in either of the formats. Though Blu-Ray won in the end, the competition between the standards gave the public a pretty clear choice in the matter.

Paradoxically, industry-wide standards, while technically being a horizontal restraint on competition, can also help encourage competition; they serve the ultimate purpose of allowing producers to efficiently sell to consumers. Instead of competing largely on the basis of the particular standard, manufacturers compete to see who can implement the standard more efficiently.

All this brings me to the case of Hillary Clinton. A lot of commentators have concluded that the long nomination fight is actually beneficial to the Democratic party, since it means the eventual winner (which, barring some crazy backroom slithering, will be Obama) will be battle-ready for the general election. But elections aren't exactly like VHS vs. Betamax; if you wanted to rent a movie in the late 1980s, there was only one game in town, but the 2008 campaign is more like being forced to take a VHS tape player, whether you like it or not.