I appreciate the thought and perspective put into your post, but I think it's pretty hard to overstate the ignorance of the consumers. Local Costco stores had/did put up very large signs at the entrance to the TV areas that basically said something like: "You must have HD programming to enjoy high definition on your new HDTV". Like, really big sign.
That's good and dandy, but what's that got to do with Blu-ray?
Remember we don't all have the luxury of Costco stores in our area.
I agree that most consumers overall are pretty ignorant to new technology, government, economy and pretty much anything relevant. I've chosen to cutback on ridiculing ignorant people mainly because it doesn't help. To treat someone who asks a question with neglect or negative responces just pushes a person further away from wanting to learn or know how things work. People also don't like being forced into a new way of living or buying.
What if they stopped making DVDs to make way for Blu-ray sales. At that the consumer's worst fear is realized, they are forced into buying something new in order to purchase new media. As for the Digital TV conversion, people are increasingly frustrated that they must change and learn/buy new things just to watch scheduled programming. Those *"convertor boxes" are terrible to say the least. The user interface is minimal and if you lose the remote you can't change channels with most of them.
All that said, I still think that Blu-ray has a piss poor advertisement campaign. I guess they figure they've won so they don't really need to. They put a little competitor out of business (a willing trade is more the case), but they still have DVD to compete with. As tough as that sounds, it's nothing simple to achieve. DVD has a strong new and used market, a very tough egg to crack. Maybe Blu-ray camp knows it's going to be next to impossible to prove the the general public that Blu-ray is a worthy successor to DVD especially at the cost.
* "converter box" is quite possibly the best example of marketing for ignorant people. It doesn't convert in the way the average joe thinks it does, but to average joe it makes more sense than "digital receiver" or "digital tuner". Much like the Nintendo Wii the "converter box" unleashed the wild side of people where a majority of their brain cells must be rendered inoperable for a time when the "converter box" concern takes prescedence. When I used to work for Wal-Mart it was quite possibly one of the most frustrating things to have to tell one customer we where out of "converter boxes" while another customer, who was standing well within earshot, asked me if we had any "converter boxes". When people are worried to death that they won't be able to watch TV in month or two they seem to focus on NOTHING but that flimsy piece of plastic with a chinsy circuit board inside.
end rant
