All throughout history, an established technology never had a chance if something more convenient came along. Just look at what we’ve seen with music over the past 140 years or so.

Cylinders vs. Rotating Discs: Thomas Edison’s phonograph with its rotating wax or metal cylinders established that sound could be captured. But then Emile Berliner showed that rotating flat discs played on his gramophone were far superior. Why? Better sound and because discs had a B-side-twice as much music for the same price. Edison had no choice but to move from cylinder to disc.

Phonographs vs. Gramophones: The phonograph tracked grooves in the record by going up and down. The gramophone’s needle went from side-to-side. This meant that phonograph records couldn’t be played on gramophones and vice-versa, forcing consumers to take sides. While it’s true that Edison’s machine delivered slightly better sound, the up-and-down motion of the steel needle wore out the record more quickly.

Undeterred by this minor issue, Edison stuck to his guns and refused to make any changes to his machine. Ultimately, though, the gramophone won out and Edison stopped making phonographs and records entirely by about 1930. Weirdly, though, we still use the word “phonograph” to describe turntables even though they are technical descendants of the gramophone.

78s vs. LPs: By the 1930s, the standard rotation rate for discs was 78 RPM, which meant that each record could store only about four minutes per side. Columbia Records changed that in 1948 with the introduction of the vinyl 33 1/3 RPM LP (Long-Playing), a format that could store up to 22 minute per side. From that moment, the 78 was doomed.

LPs vs; 45s: Although Columbia offered to license their new technology to rival RCA, they would have none of it.  Instead, they countered with the vinyl 45 RPM 7-inch single in 1949. RCA contended that four or five minutes of music per side was all consumers really wanted. But if they did want more, they could simply stack 45s for continuous play on the large spindle of the brand new automatic RCA-manufactured record changer. This is why the hole at the centre of a 45 is so big, the larger diameter was necessary to let the record slide down the spindle without prematurely fraying the area around hole.

Next week: How we got to what I call The Streaming Wars.