Retailers are ramping up their Blu-ray efforts with promotions and ever decreasing prices. With the increasing content, aggressive move by Netflix and Apple, and many TV shows now available on the Internet, some customers are asking themselves why they should pay ever increasing monthly cable or satellite bills.

The most interesting technical evolutions are the ones that depend on several different factors. As a result, it’s hard to see it coming when just one technology is the principal focus.

That’s what’s happening right now with the Blu-ray industry. The high prices for players throughout 2008 and the anecdotal feeling by many that DVDs are "good enough" has led many to believe that Blu-ray will be stillborn.

What’s actually happening is an explosion in the venue for customers to obtain content. Tech savvy customers have learned how to pick and chose. If they want to watch, say, Eli Stone on ABC, they can watch it with limited commercials at abc.com or with no commercials at all on Apple TV.

As a result of the technology choices, consumers are learning how to do more than just time shift with their TiVos, they’re learning how to conduct technology shifts with their iPhone, Mac, boxed TV series on DVD, Netflix, Vudu, Xbox 360, and Sony PS3. It’s not a question of which technology wins; it’s a question of how well customers can select their favorite technologies in order to tailor their time and viewing options.

During the holiday buying season, there will be yet another alluring option, almost in the category of an impulse buy, and that’s the $199 Blu-ray player being offered by Best Buy with a coupon book for $100 worth of Blu-ray movies.

Even more intriguing is the LG Blu-ray player, BD300, that has Ethernet and can receive Netflix movies on demand. Netflix just announced that it expects its Blu-ray subscribers to rise to 500,000 (out of 8.7 million) subscribers before the end of the year. When a technology option, like Blu-ray, is priced in the realm of an impulse buy, a Christmas gift, or a technical solution to a nagging problem -- all in concert with other personal technologies -- then it starts to take off.

Blu-ray won’t explode onto the scene over night, but when all is said and done, Blu-ray, with 1080p video and options for uncompressed sound, will eventually get out of the flat part of the Gaussian growth curve, and then take off. That’s because, in a slow economy, people start to optimize and look for better solutions in a mix and match fashion.

Retailers seem to sense that. Look for $149 Blu-ray players in December.