Laserdisc was a revolutionary technology in the late 1970s. It was the first digital image media available. At the time, their main competition was VHS, which didn’t come close to the picture or audio quality of the Laserdisc. Among video enthusiasts, it became a very popular format. They weren’t all good, though.
Similar to the more modern DVD (Laserdisc on the left, DVD on the right), they didn’t really catch on for various reasons. Although it had better video and audio quality, it suffered many disadvantages to its main competition, VHS. For one, they were very large and heavy. They took up a lot of space and were easy to scratch or damage, so they were difficult to store. The discs and the players were far more expensive than other video media at the time, so they didn’t really stand a chance.
They started to become slightly more popular shortly before the DVD was released, but versus the DVD, Laserdisc didn’t stand a chance.