ON THE PARADOX OF ABUNDANCE

CHOOSE WISELY

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article today on a curious phenomenon amongst subscribers to Netflix, the DVD subscription service.  Titled "For some Netflix users, red envelopes gather dust", the article elaborates that Netflix,

"...which boasts nearly five million members, often trumpets how its all-you-can-eat rental model is changing the way people are watching movies. But Netflix may also be changing the way people don't watch them.

Through its Web site, Netflix makes it easy to comb through a massive catalog of 60,000 films...

And some members admit that when browsing the Netflix backlog, they overestimate their appetite for off-the-beaten-track films. The result: Sometimes DVDs languish for months without being watched.

"It's a paradox of abundance," said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of culture and communication at New York University. If people aren't pressured to see a movie in a specific time frame, he said, viewers tend to put it lower on their priority list. "When you have every choice in front of you, you have less urgency about any particular choice," he added."

This is something I can totally relate to, having been a Netflix subscriber for a few years now.  I've probably actually watched less than a half a dozen DVDs from the service over that time.  I tend to hold the DVDs for months at a time, hoping to watch it with family and friends, when time permits.  According the article, I'm not alone:

"The result can be a type of guilt-fueled Netflix bottleneck for users, who may not feel like watching a film but are also loathe to return it, said Mike Kaltschnee, who writes a popular blog called HackingNetflix..."

...Users pay a flat monthly fee for the service. There are no late fees to compel users to return the movies quickly, though Netflix restricts how many DVDs members can have out at a time.

Such subscription services tap into a powerful vein of human instinct, said Peter Fader, a marketing professor who studies consumer behavior at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

"People want unfettered access to things. They want whatever they want, to have as much as they want, when they want it," said Mr. Fader. "And they're willing to pay irrationally for it."

The reason this phenomenon is worth noting is not because of Netflix alone.

We're entering an age where despite the reluctance and caution of the mainstream media industries, mainstream consumers are about to be inundated with this "paradox of abundance", not just with movies, but with every type of audio, video and text-based content out there.

We're going to have to learn how to proactively CHOOSE to avail ourselves of the all the content out there, after having been spoon-fed the content by network programmers, mainstream book publishers, and music billboard charts.

As I said in yesterday's post, nature abhors a vacuum. 

So it won't be long before enterprising startup and/or incumbents will figure out ways to cleverly spoon-feed mainstream audiences content DESPITE the "paradox of abundance?"

Yahoo!'s Flickr service already does this with it's "Interesting" Flickr photos feature.

Fred Wilson has a good post pointing out how this is already happening with Music Discovery.

It just needs to trickle down to the mainstream, "over 40" set.

Comments

[Robert Young]

Great post Michael! Especially...

"We're going to have to learn how to proactively CHOOSE to avail ourselves of the all the content out there, after having been spoon-fed the content by network programmers, mainstream book publishers, and music billboard charts."

"Spoon-fed"... love it! And I may have to use your title "Paradox of Abundance" in one my own posts. :-)

Hope all's well with you.

[tiangaehugihiu]

Take a deep breath here. Before you react with distaste for all DRM, remember that government-
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