Some thoughts on why the Amiga didn't thrive

[Spriteer]

Im ready to believe that having a non-interlaced high-resolution monochrome as standard feature would have been important for many who wanted to use an Amiga as an office computer. Without it many saw it as a toy. Other Amiga features were too advanced for many to even understand in the 80s and were probably seen as just gimmicks.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Spriteer

Other Amiga features were too advanced for many to even understand in the 80s and were probably seen as just gimmicks.

Yep, just like smart phones were seen as gimmicks. That's why I said 'Imagine if Commodore had released one in 1995'.

"We don't want fancy colored icons and silly 'apps' that 'multitask'. That just wastes battery power." they said. "And touch screens, ugh! We want a real keypad with only numbers that you have to press many times to write text messages like we are used to, and a monochrome text screen - that's the business standard! And we sure don't want to play games on our phones!"

In 1985 Commodore introduced a multitasking multimedia machine that was far ahead of its time. Over the next 9 years they continued to improve it as the business world scoffed. Then in 1995 Microsoft announced their multitasking multimedia OS, and suddenly multitasking and multimedia were essential features of an OS!

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by TEG

In Europe, in 1995, the infrastructure for mobile telephony was not in place I believe or it was the very onset, I have to check. I don't know about the US.

GSM

The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablets. It was first deployed in Finland in December 1991...

In 1995 fax, data and SMS messaging services were launched commercially, the first 1900 MHz GSM network became operational in the United States and GSM subscribers worldwide exceeded 10 million. In the same year, the GSM Association formed. Pre-paid GSM SIM cards were launched in 1996 and worldwide GSM subscribers passed 100 million in 1998.

In the mid 90's a friend of mine started a mobile electronics repair business, for which he got a Motorola 'brick' cellphone, the first I had seen. I don't remember the exact date but I do remember selling an A1200 to him, so I am guessing it was around 1994-95 (since we ran out of stock soon after Commodore folded). Cell phones were quite popular in business then, but a bit too bulky and expensive for personal use.

[Spriteer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Yep, just like smart phones were seen as gimmicks. That's why I said 'Imagine if Commodore had released one in 1995'.

In 1985 Commodore introduced a multitasking multimedia machine that was far ahead of its time. Over the next 9 years they continued to improve it as the business world scoffed. Then in 1995 Microsoft announced their multitasking multimedia OS, and suddenly multitasking and multimedia were essential features of an OS!

I think it is a valid question to ask, what if Commodore had released an Amiga model that had 640x400 monochrome non-interlaced mode? That bundled with a monitor for office work. Would that first impression have been enough to make "serious" users to accept the machine? They could have used word processor, database program, spreadsheet or calculator on the same screen. Im sure it would have blown some minds in the office world. The benefits of multitasking would have been obvious to all.

Bosses worried about their workers playing games in the office might have wanted an office Amiga model that would have needed an extra module to the motherboard, different kickstart, a jumper change or something that would have prevented playing games. Maybe the Amiga office OS would not have played games? Im not actually sure how that would have worked, or if it would have been needed.

[luncheon]

Also, Microsoft not porting Multiplan/Excel/Word/Office to the Amiga didn't help. Those slowly became the defacto office suite of the 1990s displacing WordPerfect/WordStar/Lotus 123.

Ultimately lacking "serious" software support did it for the Amiga (people that buy computers to take their work home need a platform that allows them to do that. In the early to mid 90s that was called IBM compatible, or maybe Mac in some niche markets).

[Pyromania]

I’m having a hard time thinking of what software is as boring as MS Office. I consider it not being on Amiga as a plus. I know some are forced to use it at work but thankfully that’s not me.

[ImmortalA1000]

There are many reasons why Amiga failed in my book (selling 33% in total of those of the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 combined is a failure).

But the two main ones were 500 quid price to jump on the Amiga band wagon AND the utterly poor game engine/pixel art produced on Amiga for games that were also on the consoles. Ghouls and Ghosts looks like a PD game. Ghosts n Goblins is better on ST than Ghouls n Ghosts on Amiga, Lotus II on ST is better than all but 2 Amiga racing games. Not everyone wanted an Amiga to spend 3 hours a day with Digi-View

The SNES and Megadrive suffered neither of these problems, and who wants to save 20 quid on Ghouls and Ghosts if you end up with the utterly PD game looking Amiga version of GnG? Looking back at console sales I would say nobody.

[Spriteer]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

There are many reasons why Amiga failed in my book (selling 33% in total of those of the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 combined is a failure).

But the two main ones were 500 quid price to jump on the Amiga band wagon AND the utterly poor game engine/pixel art produced on Amiga for games that were also on the consoles. Ghouls and Ghosts looks like a PD game. Ghosts n Goblins is better on ST than Ghouls n Ghosts on Amiga, Lotus II on ST is better than all but 2 Amiga racing games. Not everyone wanted an Amiga to spend 3 hours a day with Digi-View

The SNES and Megadrive suffered neither of these problems, and who wants to save 20 quid on Ghouls and Ghosts if you end up with the utterly PD game looking Amiga version of GnG? Looking back at console sales I would say nobody.

SNES and Megadrive games could not be copied. Userbase was large and there were much bigger resources assigned to development teams. Companies did not want to put money developing Amiga games. Well some did, but in many cases one developer had to quickly produce the game to several platforms and Amiga was just one of them.

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

There are many reasons why Amiga failed in my book (selling 33% in total of those of the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 combined is a failure).

But the two main ones were 500 quid price to jump on the Amiga band wagon AND the utterly poor game engine/pixel art produced on Amiga for games that were also on the consoles. Ghouls and Ghosts looks like a PD game. Ghosts n Goblins is better on ST than Ghouls n Ghosts on Amiga, Lotus II on ST is better than all but 2 Amiga racing games. Not everyone wanted an Amiga to spend 3 hours a day with Digi-View

The SNES and Megadrive suffered neither of these problems, and who wants to save 20 quid on Ghouls and Ghosts if you end up with the utterly PD game looking Amiga version of GnG? Looking back at console sales I would say nobody.

See, the problem is you're looking at the Amiga as a console, not as a computer. A stripped down Amiga console (the original idea) could have come to market in 1985 instead and would have done very well. They could sell it cheap by making money on software licenses. This was possible, but they'd face the same marketing problem Nintendo did.

But selling computers cheap is precisely the way to kill a *computer* platform, because the high-end market is what keeps it alive. The only way to sell cheap computers without your platform stagnating and dying is if there is a large big-pockets market feeding money into the platform.

This is starting to happen even in the console market, with high-end consoles selling as status products and low-end consoles (that can still run the same software) being sold to plebs, with the added benefit of using CPU and graphics technology developed for corporate customers and bitcoin miners.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by AmigaHope

But selling computers cheap is precisely the way to kill a *computer* platform, because the high-end market is what keeps it alive. The only way to sell cheap computers without your platform stagnating and dying is if there is a large big-pockets market feeding money into the platform.

This is starting to happen even in the console market, with high-end consoles selling as status products and low-end consoles (that can still run the same software) being sold to plebs, with the added benefit of using CPU and graphics technology developed for corporate customers and bitcoin miners.

I don't think it really works like that though. Commodore has done pretty well with C64 despite selling it cheap. It died eventually because the 8-bit era was over and PC has dominated the next level.



As for modern times it's not really about some classist divide, the console makers are simply trying new ways of selling more units (for better or worse) by introducing new models in the same life cycle. And bitcoin miners are just a fraction of the GPU market and certainly don't drive the development which is primarily aimed at gamers - they just benefit from it.
If the corporate buyers have disappeared overnight I'm pretty sure it would be business as usual - the main players do quite a good job of convincing the general public they absolutely need to invest in the latest hardware (see Win11).

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by Spriteer

SNES and Megadrive games could not be copied. Userbase was large and there were much bigger resources assigned to development teams. Companies did not want to put money developing Amiga games. Well some did, but in many cases one developer had to quickly produce the game to several platforms and Amiga was just one of them.

See THIS is the problem with this topic, people who pull out isolated 'problems' then magic them into full blown reasons without thinking about it in context of the time.

Piracy doesn't explain why 1986-87 Amiga 1000 games like Beast 1 or Marble Madness are BETTER than 1990 (peak of Amiga 500 sales!!) arcade style games does it? Exactly. Gauntlet II on the ST looks inferior to Gauntlet I on the ST and we got an ST port job and inheritted all the cut backs to the visuals the talentless ST developers of Gauntlet II put in (2 colour ZX Spectrum quality floor tiles FFS!). This is 1987...piracy was not a thing until AFTER this time....market stalls full of copied games were not a thing until AFTER OutRun or Gauntlet II fuckups on disk were being sold for 25 quid to use. Piracy is the solution to stopping scum like US Gold/Ocean etc making millions on shit quality software. Who do they think they are...fucking Microsoft of the 80s! If I wanted NES quality Gauntlet II I would have saved 400 quid PLUS VAT in the Summer of 87 and bought a fucking NES.

Pirate disks were sought out by us users because complete bullshit like OutRun on the ST let alone Amiga was deemed acceptable to take 2-3 days of your mid eighties wages. That is NOT fucking funny at all. The reality is there wasn't enough talent worth a shit to be doing even ST games let alone highly complex maximum utilisation Amiga OCS developments but this didn't stop utter wank like Chase HQ for Amiga coming out.....who thought Amiga Continental Circus game engine would work well for Chase HQ? A fucking idiot at Ocean. Lotus II framerate and technical excellence on the Atari ST is better than EVERY Amiga racing game that isn't by Shaun Southern. Let's not start blaming the ST.

This is all to do with lack of morals and respect towards consumers by software publishers and lack of talent in the market. The UK seemed to have a very Del Boy attitude towards selling games to us, any useless shit will do for a quick sale. Japanese companies have pride instilled in them, regardless of that useless cunt AVGN would have you believe (what a piece of shit that channel turned into, and WHY is he showing me his tattoo in videos and trying to be a 'nerd' what a prick he is now).

The reality is NOT ONE LINE OF CODE should be shared between a single processor system like the ST and a multiprocessor system like Amiga 1000 FACT. Please do not justify ANY multiformat type development argument. I worked hard for my wages I don't expect that scumbag at US Gold to be buying Ferraris with the profits from sales of the disgusting ST version let alone the Amiga version of Gauntlet II and OutRun.

No amount of money magically materialises coders or artists or musicians who know what the fuck they are doing. The quality control for both the ST and Amiga at UK software houses was non existent. Listen to the Pong console tunes of the ST version of Batman and then listen to some ST music from people with talent....WTF is up with that. Then marvel at how Donald Pleasance thought Batman Amiga was a great AMIGA GAME when it is a 16 colour piece of shit that moves and scrolls identically to the ST version. FFS the whole Amiga scene was infected with scum, clueless idiots and jokers.

Irving Gould the financial Vampire scumbag was lucky Amiga lasted as long as it did....and pirate disks on market stalls in 1990 is the reason why Amigas sold in 1990 or 1991 etc. If it wasn't for piracy Commodore would have tanked well before 1994 the way Gould was cutting himself 1 million dollar bonus checks from C= profits.

The problem is lack of talent for BOTH ST and Amiga and lack of respect towards consumers. If every arcade conversion on MD/SNES was as piss poor an effort as those on BOTH the ST and Amiga then those consoles would have failed instantly (which is why the NES sold fuck all in EU...who wants 30 quid 8 bit games?)

If every publisher strived for quality like Turrican 3, Lionheart, Lotus II etc etc then Amiga would have been a contender, in the end it was just a joke and piracy or the ST existing is not the problem. The fact is a 500 quid 'home computer' is going to fail when Robocop for it doesn't look like the Taito arcade version (which it should unless you are a clueless moron reviewer of Amiga games who has zero understanding technically of what the Amiga 1000 is capable of).

I don't even cover the Amiga much on my channel because there simply isn't more than about 10 arcade style games worth loading (ie run at the same speed as 50 frames per second VCS games on the machine, and no AGA specific games are better than Beast 1, Turrican 3, Lotus II....what a joke of a situation but yeah let's all blame the pirates even though shit like Gauntlet II NES quality port to Amiga was the norm before Amiga piracy was EVER an issue. If I wanted NES quality Gauntlet II I would have saved 400 quid and bought an NES.

The fault is 100% with the publishers and development teams! Jay Miner's team gave us a chipset that could do 1986 Arcade Quality games and we got about 10 of them. The rest is history and piracy had fuck all to do with it, piracy was a reaction to the horrors of wasting your wages on bullshit that should never even have been on sale it was that pathetic.

[ImmortalA1000]

[QUOTE=dreadnought;1494393]I don't think it really works like that though. Commodore has done pretty well with C64 despite selling it cheap. It died eventually because the 8-bit era was over and PC has dominated the next level.

Well there is a massive difference, Commodore sold some awesome C64 cartridge games like International Soccer for half the price of VCS cart games. Compare 1983 International Soccer for £14.99 or less with Atari VCS Real Sports Soccer for £29.99. From 1983 there were phenomenal games like Beach Head, Manic Miner, Blue Max, Skyfox the list goes on. For Amiga 1000 years of 85-87 there were only 3 games worth even getting and one of those had pretty naff arcade style gameplay section coding with frame drops up the yin yang (Defender of the Crown). Sword fighting on DotC is BOLLOX.

The C64 games buying consumer up to around 1987 was generally treated with some respect by 3rd party publishers. Atari or Spectrum 'port jobs' are quite rare. For every C64 Chase HQ C64 vs Spectrum/CPC fiasco there is the reverse situation with Turbo OutRun C64 vs Spectrum/CPC animated slideshow hell even OutRun NTSC cleaned up C64 release is not that bad for 8bit (if you ignore the childish pixel art spastic efforts of some early levels still present...the coding and audio is not that bad).

With Amiga Commodore made no software, made no tools worth a shit (they really needed the Amiga equivalent of the Sony 'playstation analyzer' tool given to PS1 game developers to help maximise chipset usage VCS game coding style) and publishers were greedy and developers were talentless 99.99% of the time.

It was always the same excuses 'Amiga has weak sprites compared to Konami 68000 arcade motherboards' just because they were too lazy to rethink them around a WORKSTATION CLASS BLITTER INSIDE EVERY AMIGA!

If you make no software, or make zero investment in developers to make games for you and you make nothing on the sales of the games you can't really sell the computer below cost price as console makers did. You can blame Irving Gould for all of this. If he could he would have put the price of the C64 UP back to £299 in 1984 after Jack left C=.

The main reason people were buying an A500 in 1990 when Megadrive was out was probably because they knew people who could get them games for the price of blank disks or saw such pirated games on market stalls. Most so called top notch Amiga games like Sensi or Lemmings are £10 BUDGET GAMES AT BEST

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by AmigaHope

See, the problem is you're looking at the Amiga as a console, not as a computer. A stripped down Amiga console (the original idea) could have come to market in 1985 instead and would have done very well. They could sell it cheap by making money on software licenses. This was possible, but they'd face the same marketing problem Nintendo did.

But selling computers cheap is precisely the way to kill a *computer* platform, because the high-end market is what keeps it alive. The only way to sell cheap computers without your platform stagnating and dying is if there is a large big-pockets market feeding money into the platform.

This is starting to happen even in the console market, with high-end consoles selling as status products and low-end consoles (that can still run the same software) being sold to plebs, with the added benefit of using CPU and graphics technology developed for corporate customers and bitcoin miners.

There is no console market, the PS5/Xbox is a medium spec AMD PC (PS5 just using UNIX not Windows code for OS)...the only issue is AMD were paid by Sony and Microsoft not to release that AMD APU that does hacky real-time raytracing for peanuts in for desktop PC markets.

It is WELL KNOWN A500 was overpriced in 1990 or earlier because Irving Gould cut himself million dollar bonus checks a year all the time in the late 80s and that needed high profit margins. Also his ass clown entourage of business managers were talentless yes men who could not make the same sort of deals Jack made all the time with retailers.

I didn't say the Amiga HAD to be 150 quid like the SNES or even 300 quid but combined with the piss poor games like £30 Ghouls n Ghosts on Amiga only a prick would be happy with killed off the machine. Who wants a 500 quid computer with PD looking games for a bit less than the cost of those EXCELLENT CODED WITH PRIDE Japanese console games? History says nobsody.
At least PC developers were making an effort, SF2 on PC was as good as you could expect for the pre 486+Gravis era and let's face it the Megadrive audio isn't much better than shitty Adlib PC sound.

The same should be true of the Amiga SF2 port...it wasn't....and Irving Gould kept the A500 at 500 quid for 4 years...4 years is the span from VIC-20 to Amiga 1000 technologically speaking.

Less of the 'nothing they could do about it' the problem was the combination of the price of a computer AND the utterly shit quality technically of 99.99% of Amiga arcade style games. How many badly coded 2D Megadrive/SNES/PC-Engine games were there? I can bet my life Amiga UK developed ports of Nemesis or Salamander would be nothing like as good as the PC Engine ports in Japan costing the same as Amiga disk games!

As long as that scumbag Irving Gould could cut himself million pound bonus checks from company profits he didn't give a fuck about you, me or Amiga's success on a huge scale. The big bosses at US Gold/Ocean/Domark/Activision ALSO didn't give a fuck about you or Amiga's success long term.

It was nice while it lasted but the Amiga was doomed when it went to Commodore and Jack Tramiel was doomed as soon as he was forced out from the advantage of owning MOS Technology. Irving Gould eh.....long may he NOT rest in peace and be tormented for all eternity in the underworld.

[Locutus]

Breathe In....Breathe Out.... It's been almost 30 years.

The Irving Gould monster under your bed cant hurt you.

[defor]

I thought this discussion already explained that the Amiga had no chance to "thrive" for long. As every other non-PC home-computer platforms -- they all died. Apple is the exception, saved by Microsoft investment and later iPod, iPhone, iPad phenomenal success.
P.S.: Even bigger computer companies like SGI, SUN, DEC, HP closed the shop.

[Spriteer]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

See THIS is the problem with this topic, people who pull out isolated 'problems' then magic them into full blown reasons without thinking about it in context of the time.

Piracy doesn't explain why 1986-87 Amiga 1000 games like Beast 1 or Marble Madness are BETTER than 1990 (peak of Amiga 500 sales!!) arcade style games does it? Exactly. Gauntlet II on the ST looks inferior to Gauntlet I on the ST and we got an ST port job and inheritted all the cut backs to the visuals the talentless ST developers of Gauntlet II put in (2 colour ZX Spectrum quality floor tiles FFS!). This is 1987...piracy was not a thing until AFTER this time....market stalls full of copied games were not a thing until AFTER OutRun or Gauntlet II fuckups on disk were being sold for 25 quid to use. Piracy is the solution to stopping scum like US Gold/Ocean etc making millions on shit quality software. Who do they think they are...fucking Microsoft of the 80s! If I wanted NES quality Gauntlet II I would have saved 400 quid PLUS VAT in the Summer of 87 and bought a fucking NES.

Pirate disks were sought out by us users because complete bullshit like OutRun on the ST let alone Amiga was deemed acceptable to take 2-3 days of your mid eighties wages. That is NOT fucking funny at all. The reality is there wasn't enough talent worth a shit to be doing even ST games let alone highly complex maximum utilisation Amiga OCS developments but this didn't stop utter wank like Chase HQ for Amiga coming out.....who thought Amiga Continental Circus game engine would work well for Chase HQ? A fucking idiot at Ocean. Lotus II framerate and technical excellence on the Atari ST is better than EVERY Amiga racing game that isn't by Shaun Southern. Let's not start blaming the ST.

This is all to do with lack of morals and respect towards consumers by software publishers and lack of talent in the market. The UK seemed to have a very Del Boy attitude towards selling games to us, any useless shit will do for a quick sale. Japanese companies have pride instilled in them, regardless of that useless cunt AVGN would have you believe (what a piece of shit that channel turned into, and WHY is he showing me his tattoo in videos and trying to be a 'nerd' what a prick he is now).

The reality is NOT ONE LINE OF CODE should be shared between a single processor system like the ST and a multiprocessor system like Amiga 1000 FACT. Please do not justify ANY multiformat type development argument. I worked hard for my wages I don't expect that scumbag at US Gold to be buying Ferraris with the profits from sales of the disgusting ST version let alone the Amiga version of Gauntlet II and OutRun.

No amount of money magically materialises coders or artists or musicians who know what the fuck they are doing. The quality control for both the ST and Amiga at UK software houses was non existent. Listen to the Pong console tunes of the ST version of Batman and then listen to some ST music from people with talent....WTF is up with that. Then marvel at how Donald Pleasance thought Batman Amiga was a great AMIGA GAME when it is a 16 colour piece of shit that moves and scrolls identically to the ST version. FFS the whole Amiga scene was infected with scum, clueless idiots and jokers.

Irving Gould the financial Vampire scumbag was lucky Amiga lasted as long as it did....and pirate disks on market stalls in 1990 is the reason why Amigas sold in 1990 or 1991 etc. If it wasn't for piracy Commodore would have tanked well before 1994 the way Gould was cutting himself 1 million dollar bonus checks from C= profits.

The problem is lack of talent for BOTH ST and Amiga and lack of respect towards consumers. If every arcade conversion on MD/SNES was as piss poor an effort as those on BOTH the ST and Amiga then those consoles would have failed instantly (which is why the NES sold fuck all in EU...who wants 30 quid 8 bit games?)

If every publisher strived for quality like Turrican 3, Lionheart, Lotus II etc etc then Amiga would have been a contender, in the end it was just a joke and piracy or the ST existing is not the problem. The fact is a 500 quid 'home computer' is going to fail when Robocop for it doesn't look like the Taito arcade version (which it should unless you are a clueless moron reviewer of Amiga games who has zero understanding technically of what the Amiga 1000 is capable of).

I don't even cover the Amiga much on my channel because there simply isn't more than about 10 arcade style games worth loading (ie run at the same speed as 50 frames per second VCS games on the machine, and no AGA specific games are better than Beast 1, Turrican 3, Lotus II....what a joke of a situation but yeah let's all blame the pirates even though shit like Gauntlet II NES quality port to Amiga was the norm before Amiga piracy was EVER an issue. If I wanted NES quality Gauntlet II I would have saved 400 quid and bought an NES.

The fault is 100% with the publishers and development teams! Jay Miner's team gave us a chipset that could do 1986 Arcade Quality games and we got about 10 of them. The rest is history and piracy had fuck all to do with it, piracy was a reaction to the horrors of wasting your wages on bullshit that should never even have been on sale it was that pathetic.

Gould had a scheme in which he leeched money to his personal accounts and to the accounts of his yes-men. Engineering was cut way too much by Mehdi who replaced Rattigan who was fired for having "too high profile". That was the downfall of Amiga.
https://www.amazon.com/Edge-Spectacu.../dp/B01NGZZMDG

Even if there had been a cartridge-based console it would not have saved the company. Nothing would have. Amiga was pretty much doomed because of mismanagement. That would just have been one of the many things that Commodore could have done right. Commodore wanted to sell machines and knew that people would buy pirated games. This was just one detail in the whole drama.

If there had been, lets say AGA cartridge-based console I think publishers would have used more resources and made better games. Many games that were never seen on Amiga would have been made in cartridge format. Some of the better publishers would surely have delivered.

Piracy on Amiga was too easy. It was an obvious choice for people. Most games were rushed by small teams and marketing sold games. Cartridge format would have dropped many lower quality publishers. Good ones would have rightfully gotten their Ferrari-money.

[dreadnought]

lol...this thread delivers again

[AmigaHope]

Imagine if you could only eat food from only one grocery store. You had to pick your grocery store and could then only eat food from there forever. Then the one fancy grocery store screws up in their contracts and suddenly every grocery store is able to supply food from the same suppliers. The power of larger markets would soon dominate and every store would be selling food from the general market (either existing brands, or private-label brands that still use compatible components). Small fruit stands only survive because the human stomach is compatible with their food.

All the low-end/cheap players in any segmented industry that are vertically integrated will go out of business.

Apple sells commodity hardware with a vertically integrated OS stack, and more recently they're moving to a semi-vertically-integrated CPU (they still outsource fab to TSMC). They can only do this because they serve the high-end market. All the low-end competitors who tried to maintain their own ecosystem died, Commodore being one of the last holdouts. You need the money from overspenders to support the infrastructure to let you profitably sell to people on a budget.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by AmigaHope

Imagine if you could only eat food from only one grocery store. You had to pick your grocery store and could then only eat food from there forever. Then the one fancy grocery store screws up in their contracts and suddenly every grocery store is able to supply food from the same suppliers. The power of larger markets would soon dominate and...

... soon every grocery store is owned by the same company, who only stocks the fatty sugar-laced food it decides you want to eat. Imagine if every few years/months/days it 'improves' the food so you have to 'upgrade' your oven before you can cook it. Image the big chain making deals with oven manufacturers so their ovens can be compatible with its food, but only if they don't allow them to cook other food.

Imagine if every time a small grocery store opens offering a different kind of food, the big chain either buys it out or releases their own fatty sugar-laced 'equivalent' which people buy instead because the big chain has it. Imagine if most people stick with fatty sugar-laced food because they know it will cook in their oven. Imagine if 30 years later everybody laughs at the few people still growing healthy food that isn't laced with fat and sugar, and still using their old ovens to cook it.

And finally, imagine if the few people still growing their own healthy food are enjoying it so much that they don't care what everyone else is eating.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

megasnip

tl;dr - Still pissed at Mehdi Ali - you would buy my T-shirt i know