The human biases related to paradox of choice type issues are real, but there are all sorts of ways to manage that for yourself. You end up with something objec

The human biases related to paradox of choice type issues are real, but there are all sorts of ways to manage that for yourself. You end up with something objectively better if push through the psychological toll that a lot of choices takes on humans. Sometimes this is clearly worthwhile, sometimes not. It's totally reasonable to make the choice that a lowest common denominator set of features is acceptable if it means you don't have to deal with the pain of choices, but you don't magically get something better as well. I do this for all kinds of things where the extra effort to get "the best" isn't worth the mental cost, but I make that choice mindfully. I only vaguely remember the annoyance of having to pick from the myriad of Thinkpad choices years ago. For example, Apple makes great stuff but isn't designing things for my needs in a work laptop at all. I place no value on appearance since it's just a tool to me, I'm in a very keyboard-centric software environment so a trackpoint keyboard is the best mouse for me on this machine. I need various ports to plug things into more than I need clean lines. I need features and battery life more than I need portability. And while I try to discount status concerns here as much as I can, if I'm honest the people it's most useful for me to impress with my work laptop are more impressed by novelty/customization (arch linux + tiling wm + vim-keybindings everywhere setup) than with Apple product beauty anyway. When people refer to a laptop being "ugly" it strikes me as about as meaningful an opinion as if someone told me my cordless drill or vacuum was ugly. Now that I mention it, that's the reason I find the current designer culture (intuitive design is the be-all and end-all of design) to be fairly anti-creator. The people who create things with technology, who craft code or video or sound or images in order to build valuable things do better with tools that allow for expertise. They benefit from the payoffs that investments in mastering expert interfaces bring with them. They want the option to climb a learning curve if it's the only way to reach the heights. I find calls for the systematic removal of this option to be troubling, especially when they are aimed at young people. So, as a consumer, value being given limited choices when it makes sense for you but please don't lobby for it to be more universal!