Dealing with "Too Much Choice"
Once, social critics decried markets for reducing everyone to the lowest common denominator, eroding personal expression for the sake of mass production. Now they damn markets for giving us so many choices we're overwhelmed. The psychological research today's critics cite is legitimate, but their static view of the marketplace isn't. Less variety isn't the answer. Rather, we need better ways to narrow down that variety to the choices most likely to suit our personal preferences. That's not a problem. It's an entrepreneurial opportunity.
For a special retailing section of the NYT, I look at the rise of "mediated shopping." Related pieces are here (on the "variety revolution") and here (on "shopping magazines").