Nilay Patel:

The death of plasma is an incredible success story for LCD technology, but it’s also a sad reminder that disruption doesn’t always meant the best products win: no LCD TV has ever looked as good as the best plasma TVs. Just go down the list: Pioneer’s Kuro plasmas were so amazing that CNET still uses them as a review reference years after they were discontinued in 2008. Pioneer couldn’t make any money and sold the Kuro technology to Panasonic, whose high-end plasmas were widely considered the best until late last year, when the company stopped making them in favor of LCDs. (The remaining stock is in high demand; used 55-inch sets are selling for $3,000 and up on Amazon six months later.)

I’ve owned an LCD television for about eight years and although it was the best I could afford at the time (back when 42-inch HDTVs were around $1500) I always expected that at some point I would upgrade to a plasma television.

Now my options are dwindling, and I don’t expect I’ll be able to plunk down the cash for a new television any time soon. It’s sad that plasma is dying while it remains the best technology for picture quality, but I suppose all the misinformation about burn-in and the need to “refill the plasma” was just too much for the technology to overcome.