Hacker News Reader

Comment by paulvs | Hacker News Reader

> limitless choice debilitates far more than it liberates

This, is one of the main sources of time waste and stress in everyday life. Take choosing a car insurance policy, each insurer will provide many options with only minor or irrelevant differences, making comparing competing offers hard.

Look at foodstuffs in supermarkets, many times, packaging will come in a many different sizes in many different brands, leaving comparison a challenge.

I admire what some supermarkets in Australia did when they introduced info on price per 100g for all weighable items.

View on HN

Wow, culture shock. Everything has unit prices marked in your typical chain supermarket in Finland (and elsewhere in Western Europe?) I never thought of it as something special, but I guess it's mandated by some regulation or other.

It's common in the United States as well, though far from universal.

I've found that the units are often different even for very similar products. For instance, one container of black tea might be $X per pint, while the other is $Y per fluid ounce.

Yes, it's an EU directive:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=URISERV%3...

In France, the price per unit is indicated as well. The unit is the most relevant one (kilogram, liter, meter, ...) It makes it really easy to compare the price of similar products.

I have seen it everywhere in US as well (Whole Food, Trader Joe's, CVS, Wallgreens, Target among others). If the item has some offer, the unit price after offer is displayed as well.

Don't even get me started on electronics when it comes to the overabundance of choice. I only buy Apple laptops now specifically because the choice is so limited and I can be sure that I'm getting "the best" laptop.

Right now I'm trying to actively force myself to make more choices during my downtime. Where do I want to go? Where do I want to eat? What do I want to do? It's tough going sometimes given the overabundance of options and information. However the feeling that you know you are doing something because that's what you want is worth it.

Don't know how much others can empathize with this post. I'll say that the article hit me incredibly hard and I already ordered a print of "Melancholy I" to hang in my office.

>Don't even get me started on electronics when it comes to the overabundance of choice. I only buy Apple laptops now specifically because the choice is so limited and I can be sure that I'm getting "the best" laptop.

A large part of Apple's success is that they've made it so easy to buy. Until recently there was only on phone, and you know exactly when the new model would come out.

Other brands, including Samsung though they've gotten better, are a mess and make decision making very difficult.

I just get a new Note every 2 years.

Easy.

> A large part of Apple's success is that they've made it so easy to buy.

Applicable to their hardware products only. When it comes to digital goods... they won't let me purchase anything off the iTunes marketplace without first installing their desktop client, which doesn't even exist for my OS. I wonder what motivates this disparity.

> Don't even get me started on electronics when it comes to the overabundance of choice. I only buy Apple laptops now specifically because the choice is so limited and I can be sure that I'm getting "the best" laptop.

Unfortunately, this only works as long as the few choices are all good. In case of laptops, most of them are crap for at least one good reason (cue all the 15,4" laptops with a 1366x768 TN screen) and can disqualified immediately. The real problems for me seem to be that 1) filtering the whole local market efficiently can be problematic and 2) a limited choice of often-idiotic configurations seem to be available in my boondocks so I usually have to give up on something.

That's exactly the reason I only source Thinkpads. The naming convention has been entirely static since the past 6 years.

T410, T420, T430... for the 14" laptop. (Change the 14 to 15 for the bigger size.)

The only madness they ever did was naming X210 (and subsequent numbers) for the 12 inch series.

The Paradox of Choice. Excellent book. Also Ted talk. https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_c...

> they introduced info on price per 100g

Here in sweden, that is required by law.

Also nutritional info is per 100 gr, not per "serving".

Have you heard of Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice? He affirms what you are saying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM

He has other interesting theses as well. google him.

> This, is one of the main sources of time waste and stress in everyday life. Take choosing a car insurance policy, each insurer will provide many options with only minor or irrelevant differences, making comparing competing offers hard.

That reminds me of how ITA's QPX has additional effort invested into ensuring that the top connection search results aren't almost identical with only minor differences, even if the resulting order doesn't correspond to some simple "objective" metrics.

> I admire what some supermarkets in Australia did when they introduced info on price per 100g for all weighable items.

They do this in Canada too, though I have seen instances where two comparable products are measured in different units. For example, one brand of yogourt is price per 100g while another is price per 100mL.

I think there is a law here in Sweden that they always have to provide the price per kg for foodstuff. Very convenient.

> one brand of yogourt is price per 100g while another is price per 100mL

Given that they are similar specific density, then the end result is the same and you can pretty much ignore the unit name.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com