Thursday, December 15, 2011

Apple and the Paradox of Choice

I have a confession to make. I read Daring Fireball. I find that if you tune out the Apple bias, Gruber does provide some interesting information.

For example, earlier today he posted a link to Barry Schwartz's TED talk on the paradox of choice. I had already seen it, but it is a great presentation and was a good reminder that more choice is not an unambiguous good.

The interesting bit is that later in the day Gruber posted a bit questioning why nobody lines up for new Android phones like they do for new iPhones. I think one large part of the answer is simply the paradox of choice. One implication of the paradox of choice is that on average the level of happiness with an Android phone will be lower than that with an iPhone, even if all other things are equal, because the Apple user doesn't have to second-guess whether maybe they could have bought a better iPhone.

I'm not saying that's the only factor, but I found it interesting to see Gruber put the two items so close together without noting the applicability of one to the other.

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