It was because VHS had longer runtimes at first (but worse quality) and so VHS got a head start in the market because people didn’t care about quality as much as runtime because tapes were expensive back then, and by the time Betamax caught up to the capabilities of VHS it was too late. It was also because of restricted licensing. Everybody and their dog were releasing VHS players of their own, while Sony had a death grip on their tech. In the stores, VHS was all you saw, with maybe one Betamax in the corner. VHS was the Android to Sony’s “iPhone”.
It was because VHS had longer runtimes at first (but worse quality) and so VHS got a head start in the market because people didn’t care about quality as much as runtime because tapes were expensive back then, and by the time Betamax caught up to the capabilities of VHS it was too late. It was also because of restricted licensing. Everybody and their dog were releasing VHS players of their own, while Sony had a death grip on their tech. In the stores, VHS was all you saw, with maybe one Betamax in the corner. VHS was the Android to Sony’s “iPhone”.