That's not necessarily true. Remember the VHS vs. Betamax struggle? Just about everyone I know who was heavily into taped video said the the Beta system was better in virtually every way, but superior marketing efforts by those who invested in VHS made it the winner.
But for the AC vs. DC competition, I would think that the ability to easily convert voltages through transformers would be a major factor.
Technically, we use AC because we can bump up the voltage, thus reducing the amperage which makes covering long distances less lossy and needing smaller conductors. Then we can drop it down to safer levels for utilization.
But the historical reason is different. We did use DC at first. My city, Muskegon, Michigan, converted to AC from DC in 1920. I find stickers on old service panels from time to time indicating that the service was now AC and there is usually a date on the sticker indicating when the change was made.
In the days of yore, Edison and Westinghouse were competing against each other to build the generation system at Niagra. Westinghouse, on Tesla's advice, wanted AC. Edison wanted DC.
So Edison set out to prove how dangerous AC was. He arranged to have a death row inmate sit in an electric chair powered by AC. He made sure the media was present to witness how fast AC would kill a person if they came into contact with it. They threw the switch, the inmate writhed in excruciating pain, and lived. It took several more tries before he actually died. It was a gruesome sight, to say the least. This sickened the reporters so much that the bad press wiped out any chance of Edison getting the Niagra project and also was the beginning of the demise of all existing DC distribution and transmission projects. Trying to screw Westinghouse with that little scam was probably the biggest mistake Edison made in his life. It did show the extent Edison would go to in order to make money and discredit his competitors.
Edison also took credit for inventions he didn't invent. The light bulb was one. When it was discovered that others did the same thing before Edison, the story was revised that Edison invented the 'useful' light bulb by discovering that Tungsten was very suitable as a filament. The problem is that Edison didn't do that at all. William D. Coolidge did. But, since Coolidge was working for GE, Edison took all the credit.
Edison's pal, Marconi was also a creep of the highest order. I think all of us had school books that taught us that Marconi invented the radio even though the US awarded the patents to Tesla in the 40's. So why did the books not tell us that? Could it be that Marconi had a pal the owned a company that wrote text books? Rand, perhaps?? Or Hurst?? Somehow the fact that Tesla was proven the inventor of the radio escaped the school books and millions were erroneously taught that Marconi invented the radio.
I learned about Tesla and Edison in 1975. A friend of mine did a report for an assignment in school and dug up most of this stuff. I was both stunned and amazed. For one thing, I had no idea that Tesla did the things he did. In fact, I don't think I heard the name until high school, specifically until that report. I became a fan of Tesla then and started reading about him. One great book was called 'A man about time' or something close to that.
There are also many Tesla legends. Like powering a car with some radio tubes. As much as I would like to believe that was true, it probably isn't.
Tesla was successful at transferring electrical energy without wires, lighting up a light bulb a few hundred feet away or so. The feat has been duplicated. The problem is the amount of loss is huge, as one would imagine. Rumors abound that the reason we don't use wireless electricity is because the POCO's couldn't figure out a way to get paid for it, but the true reason is the amount of losses incurred.
