The Variety-Uninterested Can Buy Schelling-Products
Having many different products in the same category, such as many
different kinds of clothes or cars or houses, is probably very
expensive.
Some of us might not care enough about variety of products in a certain
category to pay the extra cost of variety, and may even resent the
variety-interested for imposing that cost.
But the variety-uninterested can try to recover some of the gains from
eschewing variety by all buying the same product in some category. Often,
this will mean buying the cheapest acceptable product from some category,
or the product with the least amount of ornamentation or special features.
E.g. one can buy only black t-shirts and featuresless cheap black socks,
and simple metal cutlery. I will, next time I’ll buy a laptop or a
smartphone, think about what the Schelling-laptop is. I suspect it’s
not a ThinkPad.
Regrettably I think the Schelling-laptop is a Macbook, not a cheap laptop. (To slightly expand: if you’re unopinionated and don’t have specific needs that are poorly served by Macs, I think they’re among the most efficient ways to buy your way out of various kinds of frustrations with owning and maintaining a laptop. I say this as someone who grew up on Windows, spent a couple years running Ubuntu on an XPS but otherwise mainlined Windows, and was finally exposed to Macbooks in a professional context ~6 years ago; at this point my next personal laptop will almost certainly also be a Macbook. They also have the benefit of being popular enough that they’re a credible contender for an actual schelling point.)
The Variety-Uninterested Can Buy Schelling-Products
Having many different products in the same category, such as many different kinds of clothes or cars or houses, is probably very expensive.
Some of us might not care enough about variety of products in a certain category to pay the extra cost of variety, and may even resent the variety-interested for imposing that cost.
But the variety-uninterested can try to recover some of the gains from eschewing variety by all buying the same product in some category. Often, this will mean buying the cheapest acceptable product from some category, or the product with the least amount of ornamentation or special features.
E.g. one can buy only black t-shirts and featuresless cheap black socks, and simple metal cutlery. I will, next time I’ll buy a laptop or a smartphone, think about what the Schelling-laptop is. I suspect it’s not a ThinkPad.
“Then let them all have the same kind of cake.”
Regrettably I think the Schelling-laptop is a Macbook, not a cheap laptop. (To slightly expand: if you’re unopinionated and don’t have specific needs that are poorly served by Macs, I think they’re among the most efficient ways to buy your way out of various kinds of frustrations with owning and maintaining a laptop. I say this as someone who grew up on Windows, spent a couple years running Ubuntu on an XPS but otherwise mainlined Windows, and was finally exposed to Macbooks in a professional context ~6 years ago; at this point my next personal laptop will almost certainly also be a Macbook. They also have the benefit of being popular enough that they’re a credible contender for an actual schelling point.)