New item:  the last VCR has now been made

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I think we owned three or four VCRs during its run. I never could figure out how to program it to record a TV show. In other words, we used the VCR (the Video Cassette Recorder) like most people – not as a recorder, but as a video player. And we were erly customers of “Blockbuster Video,” Blockbuster’s earliest name.

And, later, we got DVDs in the mail from the company not named “DVDs in the Mail,” but Netflix, naming the company based on a technology that would come along a few years later (“flix on the net” – “streaming”).

Now, of course, we can finally record a program, with one punch of a button on our DVR. – Digital Video Recorder — (or, even schedule it on our iPhones on our U-verse app). And, in my speech coaching and teaching, I now use a Digital Video Camera instead of the old video cassette camera, and then I load the recorded presentations on a flash drive.

Here’s the business lesson. The early version of a “problem solving technology” is usually not the best, or final, solution.

Problem: how do I watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it?

Solution: VCR DVR (I wonder what’s next?)

The problem the VCR solved is now solved in much more easy-to-use, more-convenient ways.

But thanks be to the makers of the VCR. They got us started! And I am a grateful former user.