“The problem, of course, is that the modern marketplace is a conspiracy to confuse, to trick the mind into believing that our most banal choices are actually extremely significant. Companies spend a fortune trying to convince us that only their toothpaste will clean our teeth, or that only their detergent will remove the stains from our clothes, or that every other cereal tastes like cardboard. And then there is the surreal abundance of the store shelf. Do we really need 13 different varieties of Cheerios? Why does the average drug store contain 55 floss alternatives and more than 350 kinds of toothpaste? While all these products are designed to cater to particular consumer niches, they end up duping the brain into believing that picking a floss is a high-stakes game, since it’s so damn hard. And so we get mired in decision-making quicksand.”

Jonah Lehrer, Why Are Easy Decisions So Hard?

Without mentioning the company, Jonah Lehrer explains why shopping at Trader Joe’s is so appealing. The make every decision as easy as possible by offering as few brands as possible. I think Hipmunk does this for flight search to a lesser degree, by eliminating as many unnecessary (clearly worse) options as possible.

(Source: readability.com)

Notes

  1. mattlehrer posted this