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Originally Posted by Brucelee
Jim,
Think about this. At no time in history has there been a broader array of products and services available to us to purschase and use. Although you deplore the lack of the individual, we as consumers have more choices than ever before.
To wit, when I was a teen, the only real "brand" of jeans to buy were Levi's and you had two colors to choose from, no variety of fit or cut.
Go to the mall, today, and look at your choices.
Same with autos.
The array of autos, SUVs, etc. is dizzying.
Sorry, the fact is that as much as the ad companies would LIKE to have the power you ascribe to them, they do not.
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Bruce,
I have to respectfully disagree. I think you're confusing
SELECTION with
CHOICE.
To be sure there is a much Broader Selection than in day's past, but our Choices are still limited to those goods and services which producers produce. Our input is becoming increasingly Limited and often limited to after-the-fact.
If the product doesn't sell, it fades away, but that didn't prevent it from being produced in the 1st place.
Consider for example, that even many of the selections (the Automobile World in particular) are simply thinly disguised base units with different wrapping. Cars today are manufactured using
standadized components ranging from Chassis to Engines, Interiors, Ancillaries, etc. Wrap it all in different Sheet Metal, slap a different Badge on it and advertise it to different Market Segments and you have a New Product (but underneath it all, it's largely the same thing).
I am not some sort of LUDDITE, I recognize this is the way it
HAS to be. I merely pointed out how
illusionary it all is.
The vast array of selections merely means that there are fewer
Individuals EXACTLY like us out there. And, the higher the price of the Goods, the more limited the Number of Customers. The Guy wearing a
Breitling has many fewer compatriots than those wearing a
Timex. I guess many take Comfort in that fact...
Happy Motoring!... Jim'99