this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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Most people aren't tech savvy, and industry acronyms chase them away.
On the other hand, a movie is something everyone can understand.
You can understand it but you can't interpret the value. How much movies is a CD? Or a DVD? Or a 1TB SSD? Or even Avatar in 3D (presumably not 1)? How many movies have even been released in total/last year?
The number awes non-tech savvy folk but it doesn't really inform them of anything. You could just as well write "more movies than you will ever need".
And besides that, I personally think that news should try to educate folk. I'm completely fine with a comparison in the article. But why in the headline?
If it wasn't an effective marketing tactic Apple wouldn't have used it as a metric on their tablets and ipods.
Not really. A 4K movie means nothing to 99% of people. Is it 4GB? 40? 400? How many can my phone hold? Or my computer?
This only makes things more understandable if you use a point of reference that everyone you're talking to is familiar with. The fact that they had to then explain how big a 4K movie is in the article clearly shows that even they know that this doesn't help people. It's just a big flashy number.
Just for context, I'm a writer, I understand the point of using these abstract measures to give a frame of reference. But in this case, just giving the capacity in GB/TB would have been easier to understand. It just wouldn't have been as sensational of a headline.