It is like going to a 3 stars restaurant and being incapable of choosing a dish for fear of missing something.
Nowadays, when we need to make a purchase, we generally rely on the internet for guidance. That’s where the purchasing savants reside, and their advice is highly sought… These experts really know where the good stuff is, and they will wisely advise us on what to purchase. Unfortunately, these “pros” seldom agree and come to a unanimous decision. They all recommend a different product that nobody else agrees with… I would even settle for a partially approved decision, but I cannot even get that from those people.
Then we seek the opinions of previous buyers hoping for more impartiality, but these people, just like the experts, are seldom unanimous. Some bless and some condemn, but like the French, they never seem to agree with one another.
This almost makes me regret the time when we had a much narrower choice. As Henry Ford used to say about the Model T, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants, so long as it is black.”
The redeeming quality of the Internet though, is that it is fast and that merchants seldom haggle about a return. If you don’t like our product, send it back and we will reimburse you. Sometimes you don’t even have to send the product back. But the problem, as previously stated, is that in our society we often have an embarrassment of riches; more options or resources than one knows what to do with.
Recently, I was asked by my wife to buy some milk for a visiting guest. No problemo I thought. When I was young, my mother often sent me to get a quart of milk from the local “laitier.” I would bring our old aluminum pot, ask for a quart of milk and that was it. There were no embarrassing choices… milk was milk, period.
But when I went to the supermarket to get the white stuff, I was unexpectedly faced with too many different choices. Whole milk, low-fat milk, skimmed milk, semi-skimmed milk, organic milk, flavored milk, lactose-free milk, raw milk, goat milk…
Give me a break! I just want some plain moo juice for crying out loud! I finally grabbed some organic milk and ran like a thief in the night. Fortunately, I got it right.
In poor countries, they are not that particular. When it comes to milk, they just solicit the family goat, and everybody is happy. Having the privilege to choose is good, but not to the point of being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of alternatives.
“My mother’s menu consisted of two choices: Take it or leave it.” –Buddy Hackett
Alain