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#4 – Having too many choices interferes with decision making. I think most of us are painfully aware of this in everyday live. At least, I find it very hard to

by pieter 16y ago

#4 – Having too many choices interferes with decision making. I think most of us are painfully aware of this in everyday live. At least, I find it very hard to buy a new TV or stereo or phone, because I want to have the best device for my budget. Comparing all devices from all manufacturers on all interesting dimensions (size, price, power usage, brightness, CI+ support, ...) is almost impossible. The result is that I usually either buy nothing, or buy the product from Apple.

ZoFreX 16y ago
I've given up on having the best device for my budget in some arenas. I want a new TV, but I'm not going to evaluate all the options. The time it would take to do so is worth more than the value I can gain by finding the best TV for my budget, so it would be a net loss. I'm finding it's quite liberating when you stop caring! Even if I do evaluate every option I often feel unsatisfied after a purchase, worried I got the wrong thing, and more often than not a better option comes along a week later. For my new TV I will walk into a shop, ask them for the best ones for my price range, pick one that seems good, and I'll be happy with it. Who cares if a better model comes out the next week for the same price? Not me, anymore!
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  With consumer electronics, I think that's a wise move. There's very little difference in most devices that are in the same price range these days. I don't recall that being the case 20-30 years ago. I went shopping with my grandfather a couple years ago for a new monitor for his computer. We got a flat panel 20" for about $160 (IIRC). It was a name he hadn't heard of. He was only looking at the Sony and Dells initially, cause he hadn't heard of the other company before. We spent a few minutes looking at the 'off brand' one, and we went with it, saving about $40. Absolutely no real diff in the quality, weight, performance of this one vs the 'name brands' in this case - certainly not for his needs.
  - ajays 16y ago
    I think that is because in the old days, brands manufactured their own stuff. Today, major brands subcontract out manufacturing and assembly to some no-name outfit in China. Now, if the owner of said outfit has ambitions, he'd want to sell his stuff (that he sees being sold by the big names at 2x the cost) directly to the consumer. But he has no brand name; so it'll end up being sold as some generic name as "lucky star" or "super max"; or he'll license the brand-name from an old brand (I'm looking at you, Westinghouse). The classic story is that of Lenovo. They used to make Thinkpads for IBM; and then one day decided to just buy the brand from IBM. I heard once that there are basically only 3 laptop manufacturers in the world; all the laptops you see (Dell, HP, Gateway, Acer, etc. etc.) are all made by one of these 3. So, to answer your question: compare the specs of the no-names with those of the big-names. If you find specs that are mostly identical, then you're basically getting the same thing at a lower price. However: you won't get the customer service and after-sales support that big-names carry. Plus, there's the possibility that the no-name may be selling the stuff that the big-name's QA rejected, so the quality may be suspect.
  - ZoFreX 16y ago
    I used to obsess over monitors. Read THG on every one, check the color profile range, &c &c. It took me embarrassingly long to realise that if it looked fine to me, that was all that mattered. I'm a lot happier with purchases now :)
- dmfdmf 16y ago
  The consumer market (especially for electronic doodads) is segmented into low, medium and high-end products (for a given function, e.g. tv, phone, computer, etc). I find that the best value is in the middle because the low-end is often poorly built or poorly engineered and does not last (too many corners cut, missing critical features, etc). The high-end gear usually well-built but includes fancy bells and whistles that I don't or won't use (with some exceptions). The best strategy that I use is to shoot for the mid-range product made by a manufacturer that offers high-end products. To create a mid-range product a manufacturer often has to gussy up a low end product or plain jane a high end product and the latter approach usually works better in the end.
  - ZoFreX 16y ago
    Completely agree, this is similar to what I do. It's worth noting though that there are some brands that don't do high-end that are worth considering, in some markets. Buying the most expensive stuff is never good value, the law of diminishing returns kicks in.
khafra 16y ago
I'm pretty sure choosing the best device along all interesting dimensions that fits your budget is NP-hard.
pawelk 16y ago
Great talk on the subject: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch...
bane 16y ago
There's a remarkable number of tools that most people don't know about that are all designed to aid in decision making among a large number of choices (or even two choices). They sometimes sound quaint or silly, but even a pro/con list can be a very valuable exploration of a decision process. For more complex problems, the pseudo-rigor of something like a Pugh Matrix can be very helpful. I often find myself using them when deciding on things with a large number of choices -- like electronics purchases. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_Matrix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_Matrix The result is that I usually either buy nothing, or buy the product from Apple. I think Apple does so well by shortcutting this kind of decision matrix and making sure they are just at the top of a certain segment of the population's results. Even if they come out only one point higher than everybody else, that's a sale. They can optimize to target people where "price of product" has a low weight in this kind of matrix and can use that from a business perspective to maximize profit. It seems to work, they are wildly profitable despite not being a leader in any particular market in terms of raw numbers shipped. All their competitors end up operating on desperately thin margins because they try and optimize to win at any cost. It's actually kind of a cool hack.

by pieter 16y ago

ZoFreX 16y ago

I've given up on having the best device for my budget in some arenas. I want a new TV, but I'm not going to evaluate all the options. The time it would take to do so is worth more than the value I can gain by finding the best TV for my budget, so it would be a net loss. I'm finding it's quite liberating when you stop caring! Even if I do evaluate every option I often feel unsatisfied after a purchase, worried I got the wrong thing, and more often than not a better option comes along a week later. For my new TV I will walk into a shop, ask them for the best ones for my price range, pick one that seems good, and I'll be happy with it. Who cares if a better model comes out the next week for the same price? Not me, anymore!

mgkimsal 16y ago
With consumer electronics, I think that's a wise move. There's very little difference in most devices that are in the same price range these days. I don't recall that being the case 20-30 years ago. I went shopping with my grandfather a couple years ago for a new monitor for his computer. We got a flat panel 20" for about $160 (IIRC). It was a name he hadn't heard of. He was only looking at the Sony and Dells initially, cause he hadn't heard of the other company before. We spent a few minutes looking at the 'off brand' one, and we went with it, saving about $40. Absolutely no real diff in the quality, weight, performance of this one vs the 'name brands' in this case - certainly not for his needs.
- ajays 16y ago
  I think that is because in the old days, brands manufactured their own stuff. Today, major brands subcontract out manufacturing and assembly to some no-name outfit in China. Now, if the owner of said outfit has ambitions, he'd want to sell his stuff (that he sees being sold by the big names at 2x the cost) directly to the consumer. But he has no brand name; so it'll end up being sold as some generic name as "lucky star" or "super max"; or he'll license the brand-name from an old brand (I'm looking at you, Westinghouse). The classic story is that of Lenovo. They used to make Thinkpads for IBM; and then one day decided to just buy the brand from IBM. I heard once that there are basically only 3 laptop manufacturers in the world; all the laptops you see (Dell, HP, Gateway, Acer, etc. etc.) are all made by one of these 3. So, to answer your question: compare the specs of the no-names with those of the big-names. If you find specs that are mostly identical, then you're basically getting the same thing at a lower price. However: you won't get the customer service and after-sales support that big-names carry. Plus, there's the possibility that the no-name may be selling the stuff that the big-name's QA rejected, so the quality may be suspect.
- ZoFreX 16y ago
  I used to obsess over monitors. Read THG on every one, check the color profile range, &c &c. It took me embarrassingly long to realise that if it looked fine to me, that was all that mattered. I'm a lot happier with purchases now :)
dmfdmf 16y ago
The consumer market (especially for electronic doodads) is segmented into low, medium and high-end products (for a given function, e.g. tv, phone, computer, etc). I find that the best value is in the middle because the low-end is often poorly built or poorly engineered and does not last (too many corners cut, missing critical features, etc). The high-end gear usually well-built but includes fancy bells and whistles that I don't or won't use (with some exceptions). The best strategy that I use is to shoot for the mid-range product made by a manufacturer that offers high-end products. To create a mid-range product a manufacturer often has to gussy up a low end product or plain jane a high end product and the latter approach usually works better in the end.
- ZoFreX 16y ago
  Completely agree, this is similar to what I do. It's worth noting though that there are some brands that don't do high-end that are worth considering, in some markets. Buying the most expensive stuff is never good value, the law of diminishing returns kicks in.

khafra 16y ago

I'm pretty sure choosing the best device along all interesting dimensions that fits your budget is NP-hard.

pawelk 16y ago

Great talk on the subject: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch...

bane 16y ago

There's a remarkable number of tools that most people don't know about that are all designed to aid in decision making among a large number of choices (or even two choices). They sometimes sound quaint or silly, but even a pro/con list can be a very valuable exploration of a decision process. For more complex problems, the pseudo-rigor of something like a Pugh Matrix can be very helpful. I often find myself using them when deciding on things with a large number of choices -- like electronics purchases. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_Matrix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_Matrix The result is that I usually either buy nothing, or buy the product from Apple. I think Apple does so well by shortcutting this kind of decision matrix and making sure they are just at the top of a certain segment of the population's results. Even if they come out only one point higher than everybody else, that's a sale. They can optimize to target people where "price of product" has a low weight in this kind of matrix and can use that from a business perspective to maximize profit. It seems to work, they are wildly profitable despite not being a leader in any particular market in terms of raw numbers shipped. All their competitors end up operating on desperately thin margins because they try and optimize to win at any cost. It's actually kind of a cool hack.