3 ms·

There has been a lot of discussion about the "paradox of choice" recently, and I think there's something useful in the concept, as it applies to an individual c

by Gormo 16y ago

There has been a lot of discussion about the "paradox of choice" recently, and I think there's something useful in the concept, as it applies to an individual consumer attempting to find the best solution for his own particular needs. But the producer designs their product offerings to appeal to the widest possible market. There may not be much variation within a particular customer's preferences, but there is a great deal of variation between the preferences of different customers. Eliminating choices might make things simpler for some customers, but it will also shrink your market by alienating those customers whose preferences differ from your new standard offering. The less choice you offer, the less mass-market and more niche-focused your product becomes. Overall, that means that there are two possible outcomes: (a) if there are high barriers to entry, many customers will have to settle for a less-than-ideal product, or (b) if there are low barriers to entry, new competitors will emerge to appeal to the market's gaps, eventually leading to a similar level of complexity in product choice. The question here isn't whether a high level of product choice is a good thing; not offering choice is only a possibility for monopolists. The real question is one of usability: how do you offer a large number of options in a clean and intuitive way? The solution lies in UI design, not marketing strategy.

quanticle 16y ago
>There may not be much variation within a particular customer's preferences, but there is a great deal of variation between the preferences of different customers. >Eliminating choices might make things simpler for some customers but it will also shrink your market by alienating those customers whose preferences differ from your new standard offering. That's true, but its not clear cut that its a loss. I mean, lets take everyone's favorite poster child for this: Apple. I personally refuse to use Apple products for precisely the reason you describe - they simply don't accommodate my preferences. However, the fact that Apple products do not accommodate the preferences of people like me has had a negligible impact on their success. Why is that? Its because the majority of the variation in preferences occurs in a minority of the market. In other words, there's a small population of people like me, who have widely varying preferences and a large population of people whose preferences are similar enough to be served by a device with limited features. From Apple's perspective, people like me aren't worth the expense - its much more profitable to drop the features used by the minority in order to hone and polish the features used by the majority. Sure, Apple will never have me as a customer. From their perspective, that's an acceptable trade-off, since the effort required in building features to attract me isn't worth the opportunity cost.

by Gormo 16y ago

quanticle 16y ago

>There may not be much variation within a particular customer's preferences, but there is a great deal of variation between the preferences of different customers. >Eliminating choices might make things simpler for some customers but it will also shrink your market by alienating those customers whose preferences differ from your new standard offering. That's true, but its not clear cut that its a loss. I mean, lets take everyone's favorite poster child for this: Apple. I personally refuse to use Apple products for precisely the reason you describe - they simply don't accommodate my preferences. However, the fact that Apple products do not accommodate the preferences of people like me has had a negligible impact on their success. Why is that? Its because the majority of the variation in preferences occurs in a minority of the market. In other words, there's a small population of people like me, who have widely varying preferences and a large population of people whose preferences are similar enough to be served by a device with limited features. From Apple's perspective, people like me aren't worth the expense - its much more profitable to drop the features used by the minority in order to hone and polish the features used by the majority. Sure, Apple will never have me as a customer. From their perspective, that's an acceptable trade-off, since the effort required in building features to attract me isn't worth the opportunity cost.