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Why in 'tech-wars', the main actors are almost always only two?

Some few examples taken from very different fields of application:

  • browser war (Netscape vs IE, or nowadays Firefox vs Chrome)
  • smart-phone war (iPhone vs Android)
  • OS war (MS Windows vs Mac OS)
  • IDE war (Eclipse vs Netbeans)
  • CPU war (Intel vs AMD)

I mean, there are also other competitors (like Windows mobile for smart-phones, Linux for OS and so on), but usually the 'war' is reduced to only two main actors.

Why? Is it because the alternatives are really so technically inferior and of low quality, or maybe because there are actually no alternatives practicable (as in the case of CPU for desktop)?

Another reason could be that people, the 'mainstream', prefers a simplified view of the issue, and feels more comfortable in having to make a choice of kind only A xor B.

Or there is no real technical or 'psychological' reasons, and it is only aleatory that it must be analyzed case by case?

WoDoSc
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  • problem is that anything that can be seen as opinion based are hated on this QnA site, you might have more luck in chat – barlop May 26 '14 at 09:05
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    In the OS war case.. Linux is very good for servers, but many find, not so good for normal use e.g. nasty gui that they keep updating and saying look the latest version is amazing, you try it and a few months later say it's rubbish and they say - ah but you haven't tried the latest version. – barlop May 26 '14 at 09:08
  • @barlop I understand your point, and I partially agree with you: but the intent of my question would be to analyze the issue from a technical point of view (and not personal opinions), in order to know if there are technicalities that lead to this kind of situations. – WoDoSc May 26 '14 at 09:10
  • I agree, and I think that can be done, but having seen how things work on this site, I can tell you they tend to close any question that they can view as opinion based. e.g. http://superuser.com/questions/81649/why-do-rootkits-only-attack-32-bit-systems?rq=1 and a ton more. so enjoy your question while it's up! – barlop May 26 '14 at 09:12
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    You could say there is no OS war, there is the most popular OS-Windows. Then second, is Linux. But still that's just two so, your pattern again. Third there doesn't seem to be anything.. strange 'cos there is a 'unix haters handbook' but anyhow. For phone OS. Android is actually based on Linux.. It's like Google and Linux joined forced and compete with iPhone, meeting your 2 top ones pattern! – barlop May 26 '14 at 09:18
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    The pattern may be more like You have 2. One that is great.. one that is not so good. Those two might go up and down a bit.. meeting each other somewhat at times. Any third contender is worse than both those two so people aren't going to bother with it. Worst can include-only good for a specialised thing, hence not popular. Also, remember that for Firefox(which wasn't that quick) to beat IE, IE had to beceome GARBAGE. Chrome killed IE.. But yep any third place is too specialised or rubbish. The first two are often far from joint position. – barlop May 26 '14 at 09:22
  • You can join the chat, it only takes 20 rep apparently. – barlop May 26 '14 at 09:43
  • I think this is an excellent question. It would be fun if a community like SO/superuser were interested in these kinds of questions in addition to technical questions. Or if nothing else, it would be nice if they refer you to a community that does want to discuss those kinds of things. I think Quora would love this question, or maybe something else on stackexchange? – murftown Jun 25 '14 at 21:45

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