8 ms·

I find it fascinating that people these days are willing to pay (a premium) for less features or less choice. It's counterintuitive, but if you look at e.g. Lei

by HSO 16y ago

I find it fascinating that people these days are willing to pay (a premium) for less features or less choice. It's counterintuitive, but if you look at e.g. Leica's exploding sales, or Macs, or indeed bare-featured Kindles, there's a pattern. In a perfect world (or, at least, one with perfectly consistent people) less features could never be worth more. People would do what they want and whether the device offers more choices or not wouldn't matter. Distractable as we are, however, every feature introduces a new decision calculus we need to make, and one more temptation against which we need to fight.

Xurinos 16y ago
It could also be that with fewer features, we expect the manufacturer worked really hard to do those features well.
makmanalp 16y ago
Well, it's more the difference between a swiss army knife / leatherman and a Wusthof chef's knife. Yes, the former have a ton of more features but if I'm mainly going to cook, and I cook a lot, the leatherman's or the swiss army knife's blade is going to be an annoyance (even though it's great for occasional use). Obviously, I'll choose the specialized device. That's basically the advice I give to my friends who ask me about the Kindle. If you read a lot, it's a great investment but if you don't read much, you'll be wasting your money.
dagw 16y ago
But in all your example it's not simply less features, ie they are not a pure subset feature-wise of some other product. The Leica M9 for example may have many less features than a Nikon D3, but it also has a couple of things that no other camera on the market has. Macs have the killer feature that they can easily run OS X. The Kindle is the only device which both lets you both use an e-ink screen and buy and read kindle books.
smackfu 16y ago
Less features != different features. An LCD is not interchangeable with an ePaper display as a feature.
frossie 16y ago
I find it fascinating that people these days are willing to pay (a premium) for less features or less choice. Well in this case people are paying a lot less for less choice. A kindle/nook/kobo is priced nothing like an iPad. Having access to both, I too agree eInk is far better for reading. I don't feel like I am paying to have less choice. My nook is a far better reading experience than the iPad. The iPad is a great web surfing gadget, and has some nice games. The fact that they have some overlapping functionality is not that significant, IMHO. And, I predict these things will be $99 by Christmas, in which case I will be definitely gifting them to my family. I am not paid well enough to be giving away iPads, alas :-)
- HSO 16y ago
  Hm, let me clarify, I meant to say "either pay or even pay a premium". So yes, they are paying less but they are still paying for a functionality that could, in this particular case, for the most part also be fulfilled by the more versatile iPad. I wonder where the thin line is at which people will say "thank god, now I can pack all my gadgets into one device" instead of "X is best for x, Y for y, Z for z". Clumsy English, I realize, but I'm too tired now to try again... In any case, I still have a Sony PRS 700, expensively imported to Germany about a year ago, and can't decide whether I'll keep it around now that I have the iPad or sell it at a big loss (given my import costs and the iPad craze) on ebay.
  - frossie 16y ago
    in this particular case, for the most part also be fulfilled by the more versatile iPad I understand your point, but all I am saying is that in this case "for the most part" is not good enough for many people (eg. me). I do, actually, have the urge for an all-in-one device, but I also have certain things that I don't want to compromise on. My reading experience is very important to me. On the other hand, my wish to take a quick photo/video is not a big deal. So, I carried a sub-compact camera with the iPhone 3G, but if I get an iPhone4 I won't bother - it's good enough. On similar lines, I have more or less ditched my portable game devices in favour of the iPhone/iPad. Other people have different priorities. So I think people do want to converge on one device, but not at the expense of their convenience.

by HSO 16y ago

Xurinos 16y ago

It could also be that with fewer features, we expect the manufacturer worked really hard to do those features well.

makmanalp 16y ago

Well, it's more the difference between a swiss army knife / leatherman and a Wusthof chef's knife. Yes, the former have a ton of more features but if I'm mainly going to cook, and I cook a lot, the leatherman's or the swiss army knife's blade is going to be an annoyance (even though it's great for occasional use). Obviously, I'll choose the specialized device. That's basically the advice I give to my friends who ask me about the Kindle. If you read a lot, it's a great investment but if you don't read much, you'll be wasting your money.

dagw 16y ago

But in all your example it's not simply less features, ie they are not a pure subset feature-wise of some other product. The Leica M9 for example may have many less features than a Nikon D3, but it also has a couple of things that no other camera on the market has. Macs have the killer feature that they can easily run OS X. The Kindle is the only device which both lets you both use an e-ink screen and buy and read kindle books.

smackfu 16y ago

Less features != different features. An LCD is not interchangeable with an ePaper display as a feature.

frossie 16y ago

I find it fascinating that people these days are willing to pay (a premium) for less features or less choice. Well in this case people are paying a lot less for less choice. A kindle/nook/kobo is priced nothing like an iPad. Having access to both, I too agree eInk is far better for reading. I don't feel like I am paying to have less choice. My nook is a far better reading experience than the iPad. The iPad is a great web surfing gadget, and has some nice games. The fact that they have some overlapping functionality is not that significant, IMHO. And, I predict these things will be $99 by Christmas, in which case I will be definitely gifting them to my family. I am not paid well enough to be giving away iPads, alas :-)

HSO 16y ago
Hm, let me clarify, I meant to say "either pay or even pay a premium". So yes, they are paying less but they are still paying for a functionality that could, in this particular case, for the most part also be fulfilled by the more versatile iPad. I wonder where the thin line is at which people will say "thank god, now I can pack all my gadgets into one device" instead of "X is best for x, Y for y, Z for z". Clumsy English, I realize, but I'm too tired now to try again... In any case, I still have a Sony PRS 700, expensively imported to Germany about a year ago, and can't decide whether I'll keep it around now that I have the iPad or sell it at a big loss (given my import costs and the iPad craze) on ebay.
- frossie 16y ago
  in this particular case, for the most part also be fulfilled by the more versatile iPad I understand your point, but all I am saying is that in this case "for the most part" is not good enough for many people (eg. me). I do, actually, have the urge for an all-in-one device, but I also have certain things that I don't want to compromise on. My reading experience is very important to me. On the other hand, my wish to take a quick photo/video is not a big deal. So, I carried a sub-compact camera with the iPhone 3G, but if I get an iPhone4 I won't bother - it's good enough. On similar lines, I have more or less ditched my portable game devices in favour of the iPhone/iPad. Other people have different priorities. So I think people do want to converge on one device, but not at the expense of their convenience.