THE LONG TAIL - THE PARADISE OF CHOICE CONTINUED - PART VII
In our last blog, we talked about abundance and the concept of the "paradise of choice" that Anderson has developed in his book, The Long Tail. In this blog, we would like to look at the possibility of having too much choice. As Anderson notes at page 170 of The Long Tail, the overwhelming reality of our on-line age is that everything can be available.
He goes on to ask, "Can we handle this much choice?" This question becomes increasingly relevant given the abundance of information on the Internet, and our conventional view that the more choice, the better. However, Anderson delves deeper and points us to an influential book published in 2002 by Barry Schwartz - The Paradox of Choice, where the author indicates that too much choice is not just confusing, but downright oppressive. At page 171, Anderson notes how Schwartz describes the conclusion of The Paradox of Choice:
As the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It must even be said to tyrannize.
Anderson provides us with daunting statistics such as the fact that Amazon offers more than 1,200 different kinds of jams through its small speciality food merchants. Given these potentially overpowering statistics, we are of course comforted by the fact that search engines such as Google have the ability to take what could be the infinite chaos of the Web and bring it down to a manageable level.
As Anderson notes (at page 176), digital distribution has two effects on the traditional models of sales and distribution: it widens the field of possible customers and shortens the search time. Over time, it should increase sales and contribute to the growth of the overall market.
All the best, Suzana and Ian.
