The fact that you could buy or rent them in 1977 and 1990 does not make them a viable solution for home video recording. It just means they were available, which I did not argue. Betamax in 1990 was far from a viable solution. We are talking about home video recording - it is not "viable" to use Betamax when you can't take it to any friends house and playback what you recorded, unless you plan on dragging your recording/playback equipment with you. If every one of my friends has a VHS VCR, the only viable solution is VHS.
Anyway, this has nothing to do with VOOM, so let's end this convo.