shereads
Sloganless
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2003
- Posts
- 19,242
Waiting at the veterinarian's office yesterday I read an article that highlighted one of those kinks in the system that make pure capitalism look a lot like greed. What happened in the 70s with videotape recorders (Beta vs. VHS) followed by personal computers (Mac vs. PC) and eventually with cellular networks is happening now with a product that's supposed to save your pet's life.
A decade ago, I had my pup injected with an identification chip that can be read by a scanner used at animal shelters. Some vets tattoo dogs for the same purpose, but implanting the chip is a lot easier on the dog. If the dog wanders off and loses its collar and tag, city animal shelters and the Humane Society are supposed to scan for an i.d. chip before putting the dog up for adoption or, more frequently, putting it to sleep.
What a good idea. Naturally, other manufacturers wanted a piece of the business.
In the spirit of healthy competition, two other companies not only marketed their own scanners, but made them incompatible with chips by other manufacturers. In most of Europe, animal shelters have a universal scanner that can read most types of chips. Not so in the USA. We know that creating incompatible types of a popular technology is a bit of a gamble, but over the long term it can be far more profitable than some socialist-inspired cooperative approach. Eventually, the marketplace will settle on the format with the strongest marketing and distribution program and the others will fold. (In marketing and advertising, we call this process "the Circle of Life." No, wait; that was the song in The Lion King, sung in tribute to the carnivores by their contented subjects, the hoofed animals.)
Before the system self-corrects, incompatibility can cause a lot of inefficiency and higher costs. But it's generally worth it for whoever is left standing. If thousands of customers are stuck with vast libraries of Beta format videos, it won't matter after a decade or so.
Meanwhile, most of us who protected our pets with identity chips haven't read that article and are still enjoying a comforting delusion: If our pets are lost - as mine was for 4 horrible hours last month - and get picked up by Animal Control, the id chips will save their lives and bring them home.
The truth is, there's a high probability that your dog's chip will be scanned by incompatible equipment, and will be good for nothing but company for Pucci when he's dispatched to the big tennis ball factory in the sky.
Of the several companies that are participating in this fiasco, the one most culpable in Rover's demise has to be the firm that claims to have solved the problem in the U.S. the way Europe did. They sell a universal scanner that reads two kinds of chips. That would be great, if not for the fact that there are three kinds of chips, not two.
Animal shelters who cought up the cash for the sorta-universal scanner are duped into thinking they have a foolproof system, when in fact they would need to buy three different scanners and try all three on any animal whose first scans are negative.
Sooner or later, one of these companies will either put the others out of business or market a real universal scanner. Then it's just a matter of selling the new ones to animal shelters that shot their budget on the old one.
Until then, it looks like Lassie isn't coming home after all.
Tattoo your dog. I was going to have it done to mine, but by the time I pryed her fangs out of my throat, I was too weak from losing all that blood.
A decade ago, I had my pup injected with an identification chip that can be read by a scanner used at animal shelters. Some vets tattoo dogs for the same purpose, but implanting the chip is a lot easier on the dog. If the dog wanders off and loses its collar and tag, city animal shelters and the Humane Society are supposed to scan for an i.d. chip before putting the dog up for adoption or, more frequently, putting it to sleep.
What a good idea. Naturally, other manufacturers wanted a piece of the business.
In the spirit of healthy competition, two other companies not only marketed their own scanners, but made them incompatible with chips by other manufacturers. In most of Europe, animal shelters have a universal scanner that can read most types of chips. Not so in the USA. We know that creating incompatible types of a popular technology is a bit of a gamble, but over the long term it can be far more profitable than some socialist-inspired cooperative approach. Eventually, the marketplace will settle on the format with the strongest marketing and distribution program and the others will fold. (In marketing and advertising, we call this process "the Circle of Life." No, wait; that was the song in The Lion King, sung in tribute to the carnivores by their contented subjects, the hoofed animals.)
Before the system self-corrects, incompatibility can cause a lot of inefficiency and higher costs. But it's generally worth it for whoever is left standing. If thousands of customers are stuck with vast libraries of Beta format videos, it won't matter after a decade or so.
Meanwhile, most of us who protected our pets with identity chips haven't read that article and are still enjoying a comforting delusion: If our pets are lost - as mine was for 4 horrible hours last month - and get picked up by Animal Control, the id chips will save their lives and bring them home.
The truth is, there's a high probability that your dog's chip will be scanned by incompatible equipment, and will be good for nothing but company for Pucci when he's dispatched to the big tennis ball factory in the sky.
Of the several companies that are participating in this fiasco, the one most culpable in Rover's demise has to be the firm that claims to have solved the problem in the U.S. the way Europe did. They sell a universal scanner that reads two kinds of chips. That would be great, if not for the fact that there are three kinds of chips, not two.
Animal shelters who cought up the cash for the sorta-universal scanner are duped into thinking they have a foolproof system, when in fact they would need to buy three different scanners and try all three on any animal whose first scans are negative.
Sooner or later, one of these companies will either put the others out of business or market a real universal scanner. Then it's just a matter of selling the new ones to animal shelters that shot their budget on the old one.
Until then, it looks like Lassie isn't coming home after all.
Tattoo your dog. I was going to have it done to mine, but by the time I pryed her fangs out of my throat, I was too weak from losing all that blood.
Last edited:
