The Paradox of Choice

sproketboy writes "Psychology professor Barry Schwartz has written a book which is a must read by those wanting to get Linux on the Desktop. Dr. Schwartz examines the problem of too much choice in our society. Maybe Microsoft has it right after all? Here's a video interview with Dr. Schwartz, a review of the book from the New Yorker and more info from PBS." Of course, the choice issue applies to far more than desktop computers, but is still instructive in that area. Thanks to Stefan Hudson for a SciAm story that has more information.

Comments

Freedom of Choice

[The Queen]

is what you got...

Freedom From Choice
Is what you want.

(Are we not men?)

Re:Freedom of Choice

[bobcat7677]

There are alot of people that seem to think that choice = freedom. While this is true at some levels, there are deeper issues to be considered. For an American example being that America was founded on the idea of freedom: Is a choice between Busy Kerry Nader really freedom? Sure you have a choice but you are limited to only 3 options. Is that really pure freedom or just a little bit of choice allowed you by a governmental system so you feel like you have freedom.

Going back to the current topic however, it seems like everyone is making this desktop choice issue way too political IMHO. It should be about what the needs are of the users. Isn't that what we as technology professionals are supposed to look to? (tech hippocratic oath if you will?) For some users, we want to limit their options because they don't have the knowledge/experience/brain capacity? to choose the correct option for what they are trying to do. Thank you M$ for aknowledging that. However, there are increasingly more people who DO have the knowledge/experience/... (especially with a whole generation of kids being brought up to use this stuff) that need to have the choices. If the future inventors, artists, and innovators have their tools dictated to them in nice neat little "luser" packages, then how much will that limit their ability to invent, create, and innovate? And how much will the corporation that controls all the tools become in control of the society in dictating who has the tools to do things and who doesn't. [Maybe a caste system of technology dictated by M$ on the horizon?]
-- my random thoughts

Re:Freedom of Choice

[cygonik]

It seems relatively simple to me: Have the first choice be "How much choice do you want?". We have verbosity levels in logs, why not have a 'busyness' or 'user level' option for ui and configuration? With a few clicks I could change my interface from Default to Clean or Busy, and change my configuration screens from Beginner to Intermediate or Advanced. One could even have a default that is login, desktop, or system-wide. ----- If only Ben Franklin had known people would be using Linux, the choice between Freedom and Security would never have been an issue.

Re:Freedom of Choice

[SillyNickName4me]

It is limited freedom.

When the USA was founded, freedom was an important argument, but it should be seen in the settings of the late 18th century.

I have been reading a lot about the early days of the USA and the following is my recolelction of what I read about the discussions regarding the exact form of government that the USA got at the time.

In that time, there has been a lot of discussion in the USA and France about the different models of government without monarch.

There is a choice between a few systems there, and 2 of them were discussed a lot in detail:
- The republic of Sparta
- The democracy of Athens.

What they ended with is somethign that looks a lot more like the republic of Sparta then the democracy of Athens.

Bottomline, an elite is in charge of the country, however, this elte is elected.

This means that people cannot make direct choices in matters that concern the country as a whole, but they can appoint those who can make those choices.

At the time, people were afraid that the purely democratic way would result in chaos and unlimited individualism. The Spartan system didn't provide for the freedom that people demanded and was too much of a tirany.

In the end, it did end up folowing the Spartan model, but with an elected elite.

What this tells me is that the founders were actually looking for a way to limit individualism at least to the point where peopel would not act against the common good, and in the hope that peopel would contribute to the common good, while at the same time trying to maintain as much freedom as possible.

I believe it is a bit simplistic to say that Freedom is THE thing the USA was founded on, it was an important aspect, but in the end, balance to get a state that worked for as big a part of its citizens as possible, and finding the right balance between individualism and the common good were at least as important if not more important.

It seems to me that the way political parties function in the USA is pretty much a continuation of English tradition. A rather substantial part of the representative democracies in the world have more then 2 major parties, and do indeed need coalition governments. Few of those have the problems that we have seen for decades in Italy where a government wouldn't last more then a few months, in fact, Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium are 3 examples of countries with very stable governments while having many political parties.

A basicly 2 party system (with all respect for the man, I'll skip Nadar, untill some major change happens to how the US population percieves politics, I am afraid he has little chance whatsoever) makes life easy.

Political views can be put into a black/white perspective, and there is no need for cooperation since one side will end up beign in power while the other side will have to wait and watch untill the next elections (yeah yeah, I know it is a bit more complex then that due to the way the senate and congress work in the USA where you can have a republican president with a democratic congress for example).

The black/white choice makes it easy because people don't have to think too much about things of which they often don't see the direct relation to their daily life.

Most people want simple choices if any at all for things that they are not really interested in but want huge variety of choice once they are interested.

Re:Freedom of Choice

[Mr. Slippery]

wealth == choice == freedom == responsibility

No.

Choice is not wealth, especially not when 99% of the choices are crap. Having hundreds of different phone plans to choose from does not make me wealthy. Having good companions, good food, nice toys and tools, and a warm dry place to sleep and keep my toys and tools, makes me wealthy. Wealth is satisfaction of needs and wants, which can either come from being satisfied with less, or from having more.

While freedom implies choice, choice does not imply freedom. The condemned man can be offered his choice of methods of execution; the voters may be offered a choice between Democrat and Republican. In either case the system has removed most of the meaning from the choice. ("Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.")

Freedom is clearly not responsibility, as one is often sighted without the other. People have been known to behave responsibly under horrible, unfree conditions, and people with great freedom often have irresponsibly. In fact, what people who claim "freedom == responsibility" mean is that they want to limit the freedom of people whose actions they consider irresponsible. (Though they often have odd definitions of "irresponsible".)

And certainly wealth has nothing to do with responsibility. I've known too many wealthy irresponsible people, and responsible working poor, to ever believe that.

Three Links?!

[IronTek]

This would have been an informed post, but there was a link to a video of the guy discussing the paradox of choice, a link to the article about the book, and a link to an interview with the guy in the video who wrote the book that the article was about... ...so I couldn't decide.

should i post

[QEDog]

Should I post in this story or in the other stories? What to do? what to do? argh! I'm going crazy!!!

Scientific American Article

[-Surak-]

Looks like link this was going to be included in the article, but something got messed up. Sciam digital subscription required for the full article, unfortunately...

Scientific American: The Tyranny of Choice [ PSYCHOLOGY ]
Logic suggests that having options allows people
to select precisely what makes them happiest. But, as studies show, abundant choice often makes for misery

Re:Scientific American Article

[thetoastman]

Like you, I didn't read the entire article since it requires a digital subscription.

There was a time when I would have chosen to read Scientific American, but now I choose not to.

Gee - choice. And I chose. And I'm happy with my choice.

That wasn't too difficult. I don't need a massage. OK, I do, but that's because I did a 60 mile bike ride this weekend and my legs are a bit cranky.

Personally, I think Professor Schwartz misses the cause and effect. These people who stress over too many choices could be the ones who have been told all their lives what to choose. When confronted with real choice and no clear dictum from an authority figure these people stress.

[There are a few good sociology and psychology studies buried in this hypothesis, and maybe I'll take the time to flesh them out.]

By authority figure, I don't mean just mom, dad, the doctor, big (or little) government, or the church. I mean anyone from local pundits to "experts" who people place in a position to tell them what they want.

That's really the key here. People do not know what they want, and if they do, most do not know why they want it. Many people just believe whatever is told them. This includes what they want.

This of course is a principle of advertising.

1. Define a want
2. Broadcast the want
3. Convince the consumer that it is their want

For example - do I want fancy ring tones, cameras, or to play games on my cell phone? Are night minutes starting at 7PM really important to me?

1. No - vibrate works well
2. No - not pleased with picture quality
3. No - the games are ugly
4. No - many people eat dinner between 7-9 pm

Simple. I know what I prefer because I'm aware of what I do.

If you have too much stress from too many choices then you might ask, "What is it that I want?" If you find yourself not knowing what makes you "happy", then it's probably time to start asking.

And if you find that "happiness" depends on other people, then you are screwed . . .

So why not do both?

[Penguinisto]

Last Monday, Miguel de Icaza (at Novell's BRainshare here in Salt Lake City) mentioned Novell's push for the Linux desktop, and covered a lot of the same ground, but he presented it quite intelligently...

You can have a simple desktop that Joe Sixpack can play with, and at the same time set up a dialogue that allows the tweaker in some of us to have free reign over what each little widget and bit of desktop does.

I just don't get why it has to be such an "either or" choice here...

Re:So why not do both?

[Angst Badger]

I just don't get why it has to be such an "either or" choice here...

Money.

Though it really, really grieves me to say this, Apple got this right first, and Microsoft eventually learned from Apple and their own customer feedback. The only people who want a whole bunch of choice and configurability from computers are geeks like you and me who enjoy the computer as a thing-in-itself. Everyone else is just trying to use the computer to accomplish their jobs, a particular hobby, or something else where the machine is just a means to an end. And those people are where the money is. (There certainly isn't much money in folks like me who rejected the Macintosh because they preferred the joys of the Applesoft command prompt and 6502 machine language programming!)

It also means less expensive support if you don't have to train your support drones to answer questions about a million conceivable configuration possibilities.

This is no doubt what Novell is thinking. For all I know, the executives at Novell think free and open software is a great thing in and of itself, but at the end of the day, their jobs depend on making money, so reducing interface choice is an eminently rational route for them to choose.

Novell's efforts will go to whatever they decide is the "best" interface, period. If geeks like you and me want special feature X, we'll have to code it ourselves, because only we care. There is a sliding scale of preference for complexity in users, starting with zero for the general public and sliding all the way to infinity for Java development toolchains, in inverse proportion to the likelihood of profit.

This is, however, nothing new.

annoying...

[spangineer]

Tons of choices can be annoying - going to a restaurant and being forced to select from a huge list of foods can be overwhelming. Usually, all I end up doing is finding one thing I like and then ordering that all the time, without checking out other stuff. It's too much of a hassle to try out every choice that exists in the world.

Then again, if we didn't have as many choices, I might not be able to find one thing I like in the first place, and thus probably wouldn't go back to eat there - I'll choose to go somewhere else.

But if that choice was taken away, I'd have to eat something I didn't particularly like, which never killed anyone.

Morale of the story? Having too many choices is the real reason I'm a picky eater.

Apple saw this problem during the 90s

[toupsie]

Apple used to have a massive product line with dizzying list of model numbers. Not only did it confuse customers but it also brought down quality and delayed shipping of many of the models. Now you can just buy a notebook (iBook and PowerBook) and a desktop (eMac, iMac & PowerMac) from Apple. Sure you can supe up the basic model they sell but you are still buying a standardized item.

Re:Apple saw this problem during the 90s

[glassware]

On the other hand, Apple's software philosophy is to have only one way to do something, and to have that work well and be obvious. Check out the Macintosh Human Interface Design documents.

Even more importantly, this philosophy extended to the Macintosh API. Even Microsoft moved in this direction. Bill Gates once said, "Why should everyone in the world have to write a File-Open dialog?" The Microsoft Common Controls API was the best thing that happened to Win16 programmers back in the early '90s.

Yet, after a few years, Microsoft started putting together OLE, DDE, ActiveX, and a bunch more stuff - there were tons of choices. Consider Microsoft's media player: there was a text-based API, a procedure call API, and an object oriented API. Microsoft programming has been getting harder, thus they introduce .NET and standardize everything again.

I'm all for choice when it works. For example, KDE offers you tons of choices; by default there's this multiple-virtual-desktop thing with all sorts of options and shortcut keys and soforth. But the one choice I want - the ability to stop files and folders on my local harddrive from acting like hyperlinks - isn't available. I suppose that, given a few months of practice, I could get used to treating my hard drive like a website, but it isn't working out for me at the moment.

I dunno if I have a real point here. But I think Extreme Programming has at least one useful idea: customer stories. Try writing down all the things a user wants to do - "Map a Network Drive", "Change double-click behavior", "Organize My Documents" - and then put together an obvious way for the user to do it, or (if it's too hard to make it obvious) at least a straightforward help page that explains the task.

Am I rambling? Feel free to call me redundant.

Re:Sounds like Commie Propaganda

[Russ Nelson]

It's not about the number of choices. It's about the quality of them. Even the poorest schmuck has plenty of choices. It's just that they all suck.
-russ

Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

The observations are a direct consequence of a well known usability heuristic called Hick's Law. Hick's Law states (roughly) that the time an individual requires to make a decision increases with the number of alternatives available.

Re:Nothing new

[rev063]

Put another way, choice is an abdication of responsibility on the behalf of the programmer.

When an interface gives you dozens or hundreds of different choices, it's because the programmer (or designer) was lazy. Instead of trying to figure out -- in advance, or by context -- what options would be best for the user, the programmer throws his hands up in the air and says: "YOU figure it out, loser!".

There are SO MANY instances where programs insist on making you make irrelevant, useless choices. Just look at the typical installation program, for example. Like 95% of users, I don't CARE where the program is installed, what the application is named, or what skin I'd like the interface to use. I just want the damn thing installed -- and stop bothering me, dammit!

An interface with fewer options is easier to use, no doubt about it. An interface with fewer, well-selected options also makes a BETTER program.

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[NineNine]

But the thing is that with Linux, you can always back out to Windows, which in this day and age, is just a fine choice. So if I'm gonna install Linux, then be presented with 13 web browsers, 3 desktops, and 5 office suites, I'm much more likely to throw up my hands and say "fuck it" and re-install windows, then to try to deciper everything in Linux. Each distro should just pick out the best, and leave it at that. Not only do I not need a dozen web browsers, I don't *want* a dozen web browsers. This makes total sense.

I run a retail store. I have a large number of products that cover one particular need. Without help, customers just get overwhelmed and leave. We have to ask them what they need, and help them make a decision. Same thing with Linux, except that there's no help. You install a distro, get 1000's of programs, 95% which are useless to the user, and they get overwhelmed and bail.

Unless some expertise is offered (ie: each distro picks ONE office suite, ONE browser, ONE desktop, etc.), it's just too much to deal with, and completely unnecessary.

Good Title

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

The Paradox of Choice
From the title, I thought this was going to be a deep mathematical or philosophical piece that I would have to give a lot of thought to.

I do agree with concept that we have too much choice in our society, or rather, we are deep in information overload. Too much choice is not a problem if you can quickly whittle down what you want and what you don't want. The problem is when the choices become confusing and ambiguous - and I think that has happened for the average individual. For instance, go into an applience store and say you want a tv, then hold on to your butts, because you're going to be there for a while. Then pretend you didn't know what all the fancy jargon stuff means (like the average consumer). If that wasn't bad enough, I think marketers actually inflate the problem on purpose, making it seem that there is more choice than there actually is - since that boosts the chances that a consumer will buy your product.

Re:Good Title

[BiggerIsBetter]

I think marketers actually inflate the problem on purpose, making it seem that there is more choice than there actually is - since that boosts the chances that a consumer will buy your product.

They do this, and it's really bad in small countries; in some markets, you can go to every store in a town and find the same range of products, which have all come through the same two importers (two, so there's no monopoly, I guess).

But there's another insidious problem with "choice" - Most of the time, you aren't making one. I went to a local supermarket which is the only one open at 4 am, and there are signs saying "Thank you for choosing to shop at [supermarket name here]". The only choice I made ws to get food now or later, not to shop there. Or you get a Dell and it has Windows on it, and there's a little note saying "Thank you for choosing Microsoft" or similar. You didn't choose it, it just came with the computer whether you liked it or not.

People are so used to being told they are making choices when they plainly are not. When confronted with a real decision, it overwhelms them and they freak out and run back to their comfort zone. The paradox of choice is not that we have too much choice, it's that when given a real one most people don't want it anyway.

Re:I think

[.nuno]

And you have been reading 1984 recently? Or do you work for Microsoft?

Smarter people should find ways to get the rest to do informed choice instead of "mass-hysteria-induced" choice. Getting "smarter" people to do choices for "dumber" people will only allow them to remain "dumb", even if temporarily more productive.

Re:Too much choice?

[2nd Post!]

And what, Macs are like getting laid? What does that make Microsoft?

Choice is good... for now

[ajs]

Choice is a fine thing for now. Most of the world is still being introduced to desktop computing. It is not yet time to select the best technologies for any given application because we don't understand the application well enough yet.

Even something as "basic" as word processing has changed radically in the last 10 years as a wider variety of people have gained access to computers. The "outliers" in the sample set have, in some cases, become the majority of users.

Open source OSes are especially subject to this. Our systems are designed by those who have a combination of real-world-need and ability to implement. As time goes on that will be a broader and broader segment, and others will be brought in to implement for those who have the need, but not the ability (certainly already happened in some areas).

Give computing 20 or so more years to find its feet and it will be time to make hard decisions, but for now I think choice is a good thing.

Now, moving on to the officeplace (which is where most people think of desktop computing in terms of adoption strategies), I think it's key that OS vendors such as Red Hat, Mandrakesoft, SuSE/Novell and others produce a desktop with clear defaults and clear ways for admins to limit choices. This is important for large scale systems admin where you are maintaining 2,000 systems on people's desks. You need some uniformity in order to scale that support reasonably. This does NOT meant that choice should not be available, but that it should be available to the admins who install the systems and the system should behave well once those choices are made.

I think Red Hat and Mandrake do a decent job here. I'm not as familliar with SuSE, so I can't say. But, that is clearly one of the jobs of a vendor: to establish best practices and ease compatibility.

Summery for those who can't choose a link

[Joe Tie.]

Q: Choice is bad? A: Yes Q: Can anyone understand the issues? A: Think of how many letters there are in one word. Now multiply that by how many words are in a page, and then the book. Then by how many books there are. That's so much information! You shouldn't even try. Q: I like choice A: No you don't. You'd be happier if you didn't have them. Q: No, really, I like choice A: Well, here's some proof for you. People with cancer like having doctors treat them instead of creating their own chemo routines. Do you think you're better than people with cancer or something! THE END

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[Lumpy]

Unfortunaely, in a wealthy society like America, even stupid people get to be rich.

Unfortunately.. it's usually the rule that stupid people get to be rich.

The gaining of wealth has nothing to do what what and how much you know.

it has everything to do with who you know, your sales ability or your ability to talk people out of their money for what you are offering..

very very few brilliant scientists or engineers are rich... it's tipically the businessmen and those good at selling that are.

and these people usually are pretty darn dumb when it comes to anything outside selling to persuading people...

Case in point... the Mercedes owner that needs the gas station attendant to explain and or show him how to use the gas pump, or the rich people that almost fall to pieces when the power in their area goes out for 3-4 hours and they do not know what to do and cannot fend for themselves without a microwave oven or resturant. (No joking, it happened here during the big blackout and we had interviews on tv from soccer mom's that could not figure out how to get food for their families when the power was out. one even complained.. "you cant even open a can of food!")

It's a standard part of the evolutionary curve

[heironymouscoward]

There's only a lot of choice in areas where there is still a lot of experimentation into the possible solutions. In areas where a suitable and economic solution has been found, choice is really rather limited.

It's a standard aspect of evolution: early forms show extraordinary variation and complexity; as time goes on the simplest and most economical solutions get standardized and the bizarre varieties get killed off.

The same happens in technology, which is why we converge on mature standards such as TCP/IP and (dare I say it) Linux.

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[Incoherent07]

I agree. And even if each distribution picks, say, 1 standard software package to put in an "average Joe" version, you still have to pick a distribution, which isn't exactly the most straightforward choice when there really isn't any means of comparison (everything's so customizable that it really doesn't matter a whole lot, but it looks like it does).

The reason the average person doesn't switch to Linux is a lot like the reason the average person doesn't build their own computer; not because it's hard, but because it gives you too many choices (hard drive, motherboard, processor, case, etc.), and most people would rather just pick up a box that they can plug in and use.

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[sleepnmojo]

Having choices is fine, but when we have to many that is where we have a problem. Look at cable tv, or satellite. Do we really need 700,000 channels? Having to choose between 20 different products is difficult. Why do you think everyone just goes with MS? It is a universal product. No one *really* likes it, but everyone uses it.

Re:Too much choice?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no... Macs get you laid. With Microsoft, you're simply fucked.

Re:I think

[bircho]

Aunt Anne doesnt know which e-mail program to use in linux, but can cook better than most of us. She can choose a better sauce for this or that.

Joe sixpack know how to choose too. He know what the best beer is.

People want to choose when they KNOW what is to be choosen.

Re:I think

[Pxtl]

While that's a related problem, I don't think its the root cause. The fact is the choices aren't being made easy.

First of all, your choice involves a significant investment of time. Changing your mind is a lot of work. With your programming language, your job, things like this, you are limited by the learning curve. Many PC games are suffering from this badly (although its not as bad as during the Sim era of the 90s when obtuse displays and complex missions and controls were the norm).

Combine this with the fact that your choices aren't very well explained - when I click around in many apps or application managers, I don't know whats what, what's better, what's worse. I don't know what music to download, what channels to watch. If there's a significant time investment in the wrong answer, I might just choose the safest bet. If the cost of a proper search for the rigth answer exceeds the benefits of finding the superiour solution, then I might just choose to do what everyone else does.

This is why we are stuck in a monoculture - society has made it very hard to even find the offstream material, and those in the offstream have not made it easy to know which of their offerings are meritorious for whom. I'm not pointing the finger - noone can blame independants for being disorganised - if they were organised, they wouldn't be the independants. But you see the problem. I don't like pop music, but finding good music is so much work. Solution? I'm finding every single old Depeche Mode and Collective Soul album I missed back in their heydays. When I run out of old music I like, I'll just stop listening. I've alraedy resorted to that for a while.

Not intelligence, time and patience

[dnoyeb]

I ushered a wedding this weekend. People could sit wherever they wanted. So i started by offering people to sit anywhere, but they just looked like a deer in the headlights. Finally I just started telling them to "follow me" and to "sit there." They were much happier.

Most people are not dumb, they just don't want to be bothered. I happen to be one of them.

Those who do wan't to be bothered will speak up anyway.

It's just like...

[stateofmind]

It's just like when I'm trying to find some good porn, I've overwhelmed!

So many fetishes, so little kleenex.

Josh

With MS there is no choice at all.

[Perl-Pusher]

I can concede that 50+ operating systems with no data exchange compatibility would be a bad thing. But that is not the same as having no choice at all. The old Soviet Union had one choice state owned monopolies. Look where it got them. The addition of choice becomes less of a problem when they all follow standards. Take a look at cars, they all have a steering wheel, brakes, etc. They all use similiar motor oil, the same gas etc. Having a choice in cars is good. Being locked into one supplier or manufacturer is bad. It's the same with computers. Open standards, choice, competition spurring innovation, all good things. One supplier, added features and imcompatibilties just to force an upgrade and maintain monopoly, bad!

Partially right - need classes.

[gurps_npc]

In many ways he is correct - with so many choices it takes a lot of work to figure out what is worth what.

The problem is made worse by the rapid improvement. Rules that apply last year do not apply this year.

But on the other side of that if the manufactures were not scum, that problem can easily be dealt with.

All it takes is a classification system, similar to what we do with cars.

People know what you mean when you say:

Compact

mini-van

jeep

SUV

sports-car

station waggon

What we need are some similar terms for the newer technologies to become more common.

We need categories like: game-system (high end video/audio), word-system (low-end MS word,Excel,presentationsm with low memory, low speed etc.), net-server (designed to host a web site or other network), etc. etc. to be come common terms that everyone knows and uses.

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[lambent]

That sounds like fascism, to me.

Consider: how many manufacturers and models of cars do we have? Consumer electronics? Colours and styles of paint?

When you go to the grocery, do you ask for 'meat', or do you specify species and cut?

You can feel free to live in your one size fits all soylent world. Go to your car dealership, and say like a simpleton, "I WANT A CAR". I'm sure they'll be happy to oblige you, and fill you out with a nice payment plan that suits your needs without you even having to read the fine print.

Choices != decisions

[heironymouscoward]

It's a common mistake to confuse choices with decisions. Decisions are what confuse and annoy people, not choices.

Some simple illustrations of this. Choice: "these are the desktop themes you can play with". Decision: "please choose a desktop theme to continue installation.

Choice: "tired of your wife? Here are ten more girls to choose from." Decision: "you gonna marry me or what?!"

Choice: "choose from fifty different fabric colors for your car interior". Decision: "what color interior do you want your next subway car to have?"

Basically a good designer maximises choice but minimizes the decisions needed to get started.

I believe the article has made the error of confusing the two.

Re:Choices != decisions

[globalar]

It is easy to adopt a new program, it is not so easy to adopt a new OS and everything else.

The barrier to Linux adoption is mostly entry. There are not only so many choices (some required, most just clouding the decision) to make the first step, but a new way of thinking about software ("How good can free software be?"), new applications, (not really) new security dynamics, new names, new acronyms, new conventions, etc.

The way to mediate all these is to make a common, extremely well documented and supported, simple, and well-crafted base design. Introduce the design (maybe through big corporate rollouts, preinstallations on PC's) and then let people play with it. But there can only be so many designs to fit the market. The average users does not need to consider over a dozen Linux flavors (let alone two desktop environments).

I think Linux could be a little bit more like OS X in these regards.

Don't worry your pretty little head

[bperkins]

I saw this on a silly cable TV show and have been thinking a lot about it. Choice is nothing new, it's just that the types of choices we all have are changing. If you think about what career you should taken or where exactly you should live, the choices are absolutely staggering. These, for the most part aren't new developments, though more people have the ability to make a wider array of them.

What's interesting to me is that things that people have had to choose from for many number of years have special agents who specialize in making these choices; travel agents, real estate agents and career counselors. I expect that we'll see more and more of these agents in the future, though it's hard for me to imagine how a breakfast cereal agent would work exactly.

I understand that some people may feel overwhelmed by the breadth of choices presented to the average person, but it seems rather condescending to imply that you ought to give up your choices. The underlying attitude seems to be choice is bad for _you_, and I'll go ahead and keep reading the Economist and drinking my reserve cognac.

Concluding that choice is bad because it causes indecision is like concluding that the sun is bad because it causes sunburn.

After all, is freedom really slavery; ignorance, strength?

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[RPoet]

When you go to the grocery, do you ask for 'meat', or do you specify species and cut?

What the hell is this "meat"? Just give me a store full of gray boxes labelled "Food", damnit!

OS Winner by TKO

[Mulletproof]

" Dr. Schwartz examines the problem of too much choice in our society. Maybe Microsoft has it right after all?"

Um, Microsoft being right or wrong doesn't really factor in here. It's the lack of effective competition that's creating a lack of choice. Apple OS has more or less limited themselves to their own platform, which is generally more expenisive than the average computer user is willing to pay, while Linux is still too obscure for the average user to screw around with. It's not that Windows is a spectacular product that by nature crushes all competition in it's path, it's the fact that what competition exists has been limiting itself in one form or another, giving MS free reign on the PC. As such, most products now cater to it, which makes it more popular.

Too much competition doesn't even begin to enter into the PC OS market, because there never has been that amount of competition. MS won by default, which has nothing to do with them being right or wrong.

Re:OS Winner by TKO

[sheldon]

Too much competition doesn't even begin to enter into the PC OS market, because there never has been that amount of competition. MS won by default, which has nothing to do with them being right or wrong.

There was that much competition in the 1980's, before Microsoft became dominant.

You must be too young to remember this, but there was a day when you could go to a store like Computerland and be faced with a choice of 8 different computers. None of which interoperated with one another.

Over time people got tired of this, they got tired of seeing something and finding out it wouldn't work on their computer. So they started making purchasing decisions based upon compatibility. This led to the final decision to standardize on Microsoft. This has also been going on with hardware, the advent of CPU sockets and SIMMs, IDE ports, USB ports, and so forth is all about making the computing easy to understand and hook up and make work.

You're right in that this doesn't make MS right or wrong. Microsoft never made that decision, it was instead the Consumers.

But it does help to explain the dominance of Microsoft software.

Nice Troll

[Azureflare]

What the hell are you talking about?

Thousands of programs? 95% of which are useless?

13 web browsers? 3 desktops? What Linux Distribution are you using?

Come on man, have you tried some modern distros oriented towards the new user? (I.e. Mandrake 9.2/10, SuSE)? They give you a default desktop. In mandrake's case, that is KDE. They give you one browser (Konqueror). One email client (kmail). The alternative apps are buried in menus, but those apps are NOT immediately viewable to the user.

Most modern distros do a very good job of eliminating excessive choice for the new user. Mandrake is the easiest, and you should be using it if you are a linux newb.

Re:Nice Troll

[Chris Burke]

hey give you a default desktop. In mandrake's case, that is KDE. They give you one browser (Konqueror). One email client (kmail). The alternative apps are buried in menus, but those apps are NOT immediately viewable to the user.

Right, the result of which is even better than NineNine's "don't give me a choice" method of simplicity. The distro makes a good default choice, yet still provides the other choices, should you decide you want to try them.

It's the best of both worlds! I love Software Libre. ;)

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[Chess_the_cat]

There are too many choices. If Linux wants to make it on the desktop they need to orient Linux in such a way that there are two choices: Windows and Linux. The problem right now is the choices are Windows and Adamantix, ADIOS, AGNULA,Aleader,AL-AMLUG,ALT,Ankur Bangla,Arabbix,Arch,Ares,Ark,ASLinux,ASP,Astaro,Au gustux,Aurora,Aurox,AUSTRUMI,Ayrsoft,Bayanihan,Bea rOps,BEERnix,Berry,Biadix,Bioknoppix,blackPanther, BlackRhino,BLAG,Blin,Bluewall,Bonzai,Boten,BrlSpea k,Buffalo,Burapha,ByzantineOS,Caixa Magica,cAos,CDlinux,Censornet,Chinese 2000,ClarkConnect,CLE,clusterKNOPPIX,Cobind,Colleg e,Componentized,Condorux,Conectiva,Cool,Core,Cosix ,CPUBuilders,CRUX,Damn Small,Danix,Debian,Deep-Water, Defender,Definity,DeLi,DemoLinux,Devil,Drinou,dyne :bolic,Eagle,eduKnoppix,EduLinux,eLearnix,ELX,EnGa rde,ESware,Euronode,EvilEntity,Feather,Fedora,FIRE ,Flonix,Freeduc,Freepia,GeeXboX,Gelecek,Gentoo,Gen toox,Gibraltar Gnoppix,GNUstep,gnuLinEx,GoboLinux,Guadalinex,Haki n9,Hancom,Happy Mac,Haydar,HispaFuentes,Holon,Icepack,IDMS,Ignalum ,Impi,INSERT,IPCop,JoLinux,Jollix,JUSIX,K12LTSP,Ka lango,KANOTIX,Kinneret,kmLinux,knopILS Knoppix,KnoppiXMAME,Knoppix STD,KnoppMyth,KRUD,Kurumin,L.A.S,LBA-Linux,LFS,LGI S,Libranet,LIIS,LindowsOS,Lineox,Linpus,LinuxConso le,Linuxin,LinuxTLE,Linux XP,Litrix,LiveCD Router,Livux,LNX-BBC,Lonix,Lorma Luinux,Lunar,Lycoris,Magic,Mandows,Mandrake,Media Lab,Medialinux,MEPIS,MIKO GNYO,Miracle,MIZI,Morphix,MoviX,MSC.Linux,MUMi,Mur ix,Nasgaia,Netwosix,NordisKnoppix,NuxOne,OGo Knoppix,O-Net,OEone,Omoikane Onebase,OpenDesktop,OpenNA,OpenSLS,Openwall,Oralux ,Overclockix,PCLinuxOS,Peanut,Penguin Sleuth,Pequelin,Phayoune,PHLAK,PHP Sol,Pingwinek,Plamo,Plan-B,PLD,Polar Bear,Puppy,QiLinux,Quantian,Red Flag,Red Hat,ROCK,ROOT,RPM Live,Rubyx,RUNT,SCI.Linux,Securepoint,SENTINIX,Sen try Firewall,Shabdix,Shark,Skolelinux,Slackintosh,Slac kware,Slavix,SLAX,,Slix,SME Server,SmoothWall,SoL,Sorcerer,Source Mage,Soyombo,stresslinux STUX,SULIX,Sun JDS,SUSE,SystemRescue,TA,Tao,Tech,TFM,Thiz,Tilix,T PM,Trustix,TupiServer,Turbolinux,UHU-Linux,uOS,Use rLinux,Vector,Vine,ViruX,vnlinuxCD,Voodoo,White Box,WinBi,WOMP!,WOW,X-evian,Xandros,Xteam,Yellow Dog,Yoper,YourESale,ZENIX,Zeus,and Zopix.

Every fork, every distro is one more nail in Linux's chances on the desktop. Linux is divinding and conquering itself. Pick a distro. Name it the One True Linux. Promote the hell out of it. Then you'll see results.

HP Cafeteria

[nacturation]

I take it you've never eaten at the HP cafe?

Lunch, the HP Way

by Stephen Harrison and Noel Magee

This is the story of a different kind. No melting CPU's, no screaming disc drives, just the kind of psychological torture that scars a man for life.

I had a 9:00 meeting with my sales rep. I needed to buy an entire new series 70, the works. He said it'd take about an hour. Three hours later, we'd barely got the datacomm hardware down on paper, so he invited me downstairs for lunch.

This was my first experience in an HP cafeteria. Above the service counter was a menu which began...

MMU's (Main Menu Units)

0001A Burger. Includes sesame-seed bun.
Must order comdiments 00110A separately
001 Deletes seeds.
002 Expands burger to two patties.

00020A Double cheeseburger, preconfigured. Includes cheese,
bun and condiments.
001 Add-on bacon.
002 Delete second patty.
003 Replaces second patty with extra cheese.

00021A Burger Upgrade to Double Cheeseburger
001 From Single Burger.
002 From Double Burger.
003 Return credit for bun.

00220A Burger Bundle. Includes 00010A, 00210A and 00310A
001 Substitute root beer 00311A for cola 00310A.

My eyes glazed over. I asked for a burger and a root beer. The waitress looked at me like I was an alien.

"How would you like to order that, sir?"

"Quickly, if possible. Can't I just order a sandwich and a drink?"

"No sir. All our service is menu driven. Now what would you like?"

I scanned the menu. "How big is the 00010 burger?"

"The patty is rated at eight bites."

"Well, how about the rest of it?"

"I dont have the specs on that, sir, but I think it's a bit more."

"Eight bites is too small. Give me the Double Burger Upgrade."

My sales rep interrupted. "No, you want the Single Burger option 002 'expands burger to two patties'. The double burger upgrade would give you two burgers.

"But you could get return credit on the extra bun," the waitress chimed in, trying to be helpful, "although it isn't documented."

I looked around to see if anybody was staring at me. There was a couple in line behind us. I recognized one of them, a guy who merely mowed me down in the parking lot with his cherry-red '62 Vette. He was talking to some woman who was waving her arms around and looking very excited.

"What if... we marketed the bacon cheeseburger with the vegetable option and without the burger and cheese? It'd be a BLT!"

The woman charged off in the direction of the telephone, running steeplechases over tables and chairs. My waitress tried to get my attention again. "Have you decided, sir?"

"Yeah, give me the double burger- excuse me, I mean the 00020A with the option 001. I want everything on it." She put me down for the Condiment Expansion Kit, which included mayonnaise, mustard and pickles with a option to substitute relish.

"Ketchup." I hated to ask. "I want ketchup on that, too."

"That's not a condiment, sir, it's a Tomato Product." My sales rep butted in again. "That's not a supported configuration."

"What now?" I kept my voice steady.

"Too juicy. The bun can't handle it."

"Look. Forget the ketchup, just put some lettuce and tomatoes on it."

The waitress backed away from the counter. "I'm sorry, sir, but that's not supported either, the bun can take it but the burger won't fit in the box. The sales rep defended himself. "Just not at first release." "It is being beta-tested, sir."

I checked the overhead screen. Fries, number 000210A, option 110. French followed by option 120, English. "What the hell are English Fries?" I turned to the sales rep. "Chips they call them. We sell a lot of them."

I gave up. "OK, OK just give me a plain vanilla Burger Bundle." The confused the waitress profoundly. "Sir, Vanilla as an option is configured

Your problem

[bonch]

I have no sympathy for people who have so many good choices that they have trouble choosing just one. None.

Wow. You're so heroic.

Your problem is that you think NORMAL people--i.e., people who don't visit Slashdot 10+ times a day and download the latest point release of something called "GNOME"--have the time, energy, and patience to learn which of their 8 text editors is the best. To them, the whole idea is ridiculous, and they'll ask you, "why don't they just make one good one?"

Are you going to whine at them how you have no sympathy for people who blah blah blah something about poor people in India blah blah blah, or are you just going to nod and agree like any sane person would?

The day anti-social, non-approachable nerds like you (this is not a troll but an accurate description of the mindset) stop controlling the direction of the Linux desktop community is the day it finally starts gaining real momentum outside of its current niche position.

Re:Your problem

[tsg]

Your problem is that you think NORMAL people...have the time, energy, and patience to learn which of their 8 text editors is the best.

If they don't care enough to find out, why should I care if they don't find out? They don't need the "best", they need what meets their requirements. And the only one who knows their requirements is them. They have to determine what they need, what they don't need and what they don't care about. Then they have to make an effort to find out what meets those needs. If they're not willing to do that, fine, that's their choice. But don't limit my choices because some people are too lazy to make one.

"Too many choices" is just another way of saying "I'm too lazy to think for myself."

This is a well-known persuasive issue...

[MattRog]

This is a well-known phenomenon in people management. If you're trying to persuade someone to make a choice and give them 50 options they are most likely to not choose any of them (or in this case, stick with Windows). When you have so many options they get worried and confused - did I pick the right one? What if I had picked XYZ? What makes option XYZ better than option ABC?

Now, I'm not suggesting that choice is bad - but if you want someone to decide you must initially present them with a small number of options - A or B - not A or B or C or D or .. N, etc..

Joel on Software

[Boing]

Chapter Three of Joel Spolsky's User Interface Design for Programmers has an excellent, clear presentation of this problem.

The summary (as I read it)? People like choice when it's related to what they want to do. If they're making a greeting card, they want to choose what font it uses and what overused clip-art to use. They don't want to choose its orientation as it comes out of the printer, or whether it's saved in MS Word or PDF or RTF or HTML or BMP.

So when I install a linux distribution, and I want to compose a word processing document? I don't care all that much whether I'm using KOffice or StarOffice or OpenOffice.org or AbiWord or whatever, because the point is not what program I'm using. The point is to write a document, and I shouldn't have to make a needless choice just to get to that point.

That's why modularity (versus "yes" or "no" to compiling it in) in the linux kernel is such a good idea, for example. It allows me to say, "make this choice for me if I need it, and don't hassle me about it."

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[Ayaress]

Actually, when you go to the dealership, they DO make decisions for you. Like you said, there are thousands of cars, and about 500 variations of any given model - more on the expensive cars with lots of options.

You don't go in there knowing what all these options are. Most of them are shit you've never heard of. What the hell is Quadromechinational Steering and why the hell does it cost $5000? They tell you that stuff, and they help you make a decision on wether you want it, or want to take the normal power steering everybody else has.

They don't make the choice for you, and the above post doesn't suggest that. But you aren't just shown a list of the fifteen engines, four steering assemblies, seven or more fucking DOOR HINGES that any given car can have installed at the factory while the salesman sits there with a blank stare waiting for you to pick which ones you want.

Most of it you just get and don't worry about.

I don't care what kind of flanges are on my trunk door, just so it opens and closes, I'm happy. But I could picked from two different flanges on that hood. I don't even know what a flange is or does, let alone how one or the other is better, but they both cost the same thing, so I don't care.

After wrecking the car I've been talking about, I also learned that the 1997 Chevy Lumnia could have had one of four different engines, each of which has two different head assemblies. I don't know what all that shit is, and I don't want to pick one or the other.

I want that white car over there. You put the shit in it that makes it drive, I don't want to worry about flanges and fittings and what kind of clips hold the radiator hose in place. Fine, ok, I have seven different fan belt choices - I DON'T CARE, just make it DRIVE.

See? That's how people are with their computers. The coice is there, but they don't know what all this shit is. Yes, they use it, but they don't know one from the next, and that's why the vast majority of people still use Windows. You get the stuff, it's there, you don't have to think about it.

Re:Psychology not science

[Anonymous Coward]

Not from me you won't because science doesn't limit itself to physics and mathematics.

You'd like to think that equations are harder to understand than complex human systems but then again you only believe what you want as it flatters you to think so.

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[koreth]

I think you need a little less myopia in your definitions of "smart" and "stupid." Intelligence is a much broader thing than just "talent with numbers and machines."

Mozart and Picasso and Alexander the Great probably wouldn't be able to write a Perl script or analyze a chemical reaction if they were alive today. But I think few people would call any of them unintelligent.

As for wealth vs. intelligence, here's a book for you: "Rich Dad, Poor Dad." A bit repetitive, but it talks at length about how someone can be very smart in some ways but not when it comes to money.

Being able to figure out the decay rate of a new radioactive isotope doesn't make you good at figuring out which underpriced region is going to have the next big real estate boom. But both of those things require smarts.

That said, at least one study (admittedly, performed by someone whose views on the subject are controversial) shows a pretty good correlation between high IQ and financial success. That tracks pretty well with my experience in life: most of the rich people I know are pretty sharp. All of the self-made rich people I know are pretty sharp. If you can provide a pointer to any research showing a reverse correlation, I'd be fascinated to see it.

For Linux choice should come with experience

[Neil Watson]

I just installed Linux on a friend's laptop. He does not have much experience with Linux. To help in through the transition I installed Openbox as his window manager and gave him a simply menu and hot key list:

• Web Browser: F1
• Chat: F2
• Email: F3
• Word Processor F4
• Speadsheet F5
• Presentation F6
• Xterm F7
• Run Command F8
• Exit

Less choice, less questions, less confusion. So far I have had no complaints. Obviously, as he gets comfortable he will want more choices later. At the beginning, I think the overwhelming amount of choice is what turns new users away from Linux.

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[ThosLives]

Ah, but the issue is not complaining about having too many or too few choices. The article refers to a paper/book (which I heard about *outside* the confines of /.) that makes the observation that in a society with more choices (regardless of the quality of those choices) that society has a higher incidence of psychological issues categorized as "unhappy". The findings indicate that that as choices increase from some very low level (i.e., find food and shelter or die) that happiness increases, but there is a point where the happiness ceases to increase and then actually decreases as more choice is given.

You have to realize this is a collective phenomenon, and it doesn't necessarily apply to each individual. I'm not a psychologist or anything, but I have observed this phenomenon.

This problem touchs only 1 kind of people.

[Quebec]

I've seen one professor talking about the problem
of having too much choices (I think it was the author of this book) and he was clear about
something, it only is a problem for one type of people; those who are not satisfied with their choice until they absolutly know for sure they made the best choice. Those with a "good is good enough for me" mentality do not have any problem with too many choices.

Choose Your Own Adventure

[Guardian452]

This concept was driven home for me in elementary school with the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. I could NOT read one of those without jamming my fingers between pages to mark interesting divergences in case my choice didn't work out! It drove me nuts to think that I might be missing out on something interesting somewhere else.

"Do you want to repair the damaged robot? Turn to p. 42"
"Or you want to flee with the princess? Turn to p.22"

Choices? Bah! I just gave up and went with the old "one narrative only" books. Much more satisfying.

Cost of Choice: Social Pressure, Societal Scale

[G4from128k]

I do agree with concept that we have too much choice in our society, or rather, we are deep in information overload. Too much choice is not a problem if you can quickly whittle down what you want and what you don't want. The problem is when the choices become confusing and ambiguous - and I think that has happened for the average individual.

Very good points. I see the issue in terms of 4 factors:

Rising Cost of Decision Making: Excessive options and excessive information on each option drive up the cost of choice. The cost of decision making can easily exceed the marginal benefit of making the decison.

Psychological Risk of Decision Making: Some people are more comfortable without choice because it absolves them of responsibility. If you have only one choice, you get to bitch about it. If you have multiple choices and you chose incorrectly, you have only yourself to blame.

Cost of Competition: We seem to live in a competative, judgemental socitey in which people are judged by the choices they make. This increases the importance of every minor decision. Faced with a number of reasonably good options, people often spend too much time deciding. They feel compelled to do this because of the perceived social penalty of making the wrong choice. Nobody wants to pick the second-best option even if it is nearly as good as the #1 option.

Scale of Society: The bigger problem is the increasing scale of society. Many might think that have umpteen types of mustard, text editors, or cars is too much. But there is no unanimous agreement on which alternatives to remove.

This problem will only get worse. I would wager that in most industries, the number of economically viable choices scales with the log of the market-accessible population. With global trade and rising standards of living, we will only see more choices.

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[HarveyBirdman]

When you go to the grocery, do you ask for 'meat', or do you specify species and cut?

I used to ask for "human, lean breast" but now they just call the cops when they see me coming. :-(

I don't get no respect.

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[gfxguy]

That's really a sad approach, though. How long you take to make a decision on something should reflect how long it's going to affect your life. Little things can make a huge difference.

If you plan on spending $20,000 on your new car, and you plan on keeping for ten years, then you damn well better know the "door hinge" options and figure out which one you like the best. One little thing like a squeaky hinge (hey, you cheaped out) will annoy you for years and years.

Anyone who walks onto a car lot without knowing basically what they want, with the options they want, and knowing the price they should expect to pay, is an idiot who is going to end up paying too much money for a car they didn't really want.

Long term purchases require some actual THOUGHT be put into it.

What annoys me is people taking a half an hour to decide what they want to order off the menu when they won't even care tomorrow.

As far as computers are concerned, your choices today may impact you long after that 10 year old car is gone. Then again, it may not. Pick MP3 now and convert it to the next great format every few years. Whatever.

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[The Spoonman]

Consider: how many manufacturers and models of cars do we have? Consumer electronics? Colours and styles of paint?

How many models of cars that do things differently from every other model of car? If I buy a Ford, I don't need to take training because my last car was a Pontiac. Everything works the same. Sure, the placement of the A/C or cruise controls are a little different, but the steering wheel isn't square and in the trunk. The basics of "a car" does not change: it has four wheels, (in the States) a steering wheel on the left front side, two-three pedals, etc. Hell, even the order of the gears on an automatic are the same (P R N D 1 2 3).

Contrast that with Linux distros where some applications are present, and some are not. Some applications are placed here, and some are placed there. Some use this window manager, some use this one. Some keybindings are like this, some are like that. Some will work with hardware better than others. Some have this, some have that. Hell, I've tried 2-3 distros in the last few months, and only one that I remember contained a GUI util to change the screen resolution (an important util for noobs as most distros set your damn resolution to the absolute highest it will go, regardless of how you want it or not!)

I can climb into any car, start it up and drive it. Change your Linux distro, or just upgrade in some cases, and you spend hours just trying to figure out where everything is. THIS is why Windows is winning the desktop day in and day out. It has nothing to do with monopolies or political bullying. It never ceases to amaze me that the Linux community will stomp and scream like small children about anything that violates an open standard in any way, shape, or form, but outright REFUSES to create a single, standard, default desktop that is consistent across all distros. There's nothing stopping you or anyone else from changing it later, but start with SOMETHING.

Give 'em four tires and a steering wheel, if they want a Cartman antenna topper or a Jason Mewes window sticker, they can add it themselves. And, I know, there's gonna be tons of flames on this post..."Don't tell me what I can and can't run on my desktop!" "Who gives you the right to decide what's included in my distro?" For those contemplating such flames...get a clue. No one is suggesting locking anyone into a "one size fits all soylent world", idiot. They're suggesting giving a consistent base to build on.

Re:Too many choices?? Hardly

[AviLazar]

Lets not throw such terms as "facism" around too easily. I totally understand what this person is saying. While choice is great, too much choice - without explanation or direction - sucks. When I go to the store for meat - i know there is chicken, beef, fish, and pork - do I know the plethora of cuts? No I do not. I go to the butcher and say "Hey I want to make this, what do you think." The butcher then tells me which cut I should take. Maybe he is all out for himself and selling me a terrible cut so he can make an extra buck. My alternative is to go buy a book and learn the fine art of being a butcher (something I do not plan on doing). So I need to rely on this person and hope he is an honest person (and if he isn't, when he comes to me for computer service I will return the favor "oh yea you need a wizzy gadget, it will run you 2 grand". When I go to download Linux I do not have a butcher telling me what would work best for my life style. That is what this person is stating. When I go to the dealership I go there with a thought process - be it cost, look style. So if I go to the dealership and say "hey i want a family car and i want to spend 21 grand" they will offer me help. If i go to the dealership and say "I WANT A CAR" I bet you the person is going to start asking questions like "are you single or married? have kids? do you want to off road? etc." The person has a valid argument, lets not chew him down because we love linux. -A

Apple, not Microsoft

[hak1du]

That's Apple's secret: Apple picks a lot of things for you. They don't always make the best choices, but they usually make workable choices, and even when their choices are technically bad (as they are from time to time), at least they still make them look good.

Microsoft, on the other hand, is all about choice (within well-defined, money-making parameters): you get zillions of audio and video CODECs, lots of configuration options for the UI, preference panels with sub-panels until your eyes glaze over, dozens of classes that all do the same thing, and let's not forget an ever expanding list of third-party utilities and add-ons to make up for the choices Microsoft didn't give you and the problems Microsoft created while creating all that choice. Microsoft isn't kidding when they are saying that they are giving you choices.

UNIX, like Apple, traditionally has made choices and stuck by them. For example, the UNIX folks at Bell Labs understood that the use of "tab" in Makefiles probably was a mistake, but it wasn't a big enough mistake to create another "make" utility (at least not for a couple of decades). And, yes, the file system may not be the ideal IPC or database mechanism, but it worked well enough and provided a good, simple answer.

Linux has inherited some of the UNIX simplicity and philosophy, although, sadly, there has been a lot of uncertainty and waffling come into it, mostly from people who are trying to turn Linux into Windows.

Choice is Wonderful

[buzzoff]

I recently bought two sets of tires for my SUVs. The set of brands and models were overwhelming. I got through the process by looking at reviews for the tires. Within 20 minutes I had narrowed the list to four models of tires. I checked prices locally and made purchases within the week from two different vendors.

Not only is choice of tires good, but choice of vendors. The qualification is, you have to be smart about it. I can see how choice could be bad for people with low comprehension skills. For those who negotiate prices and want the best quality, the more choice the better.

Reviews, either formal or informal, are key for high involvement purchases (choice in low involvement purchases don't matter as much, because the product is inexpensive, not critical, etc.).