It's a shame that the higher quality product isn't always what wins and kind of says something about our Walmart approach to life.
"While VHS machines' lower retail price was eventually a major factor, the principal battleground proved to be recording time. The original Sony Betamax video recorder for the NTSC television system could record for only 60 minutes, identical to the previous U-matic format, which had been sufficient for use in television studios. JVC's VHS could manage 120 minutes, followed by RCA's entrance into the market with a 240-minute recorder using VHS. These challenges sparked a mini-war to see who could achieve the longest recording time."
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Betamax&oldid=107...
popularity is also skewed young. income is skewed old. VHS was a much better fit as a lowest common denominator. If a product is trying to be a popular medium, cheap is necessary.
That said, once the medium is established - people will still happily pay a lot for a high quality product within the medium. iPhone popularity is a good example of this. People bought expensive VHS players with bells and whistles too.