> There's a case to be made that people get the marketing they deserve, as evidenced in their voting patterns and buying behavior.
I hate it when people make this case, or in general anything along the lines of "revealed preferences". This hides a certain divide-and-conquer that's happening. A single individual can't, in general, influence the market with their purchasing behavior. A thousand buyers simultaneously switching vendors would register on someone's radar, but real buyers are uncoordinated. Consider the 3.5mm audio jack and phones. If all the people who were unhappy about Apple having the "courage" to drop it would band together and announce that they'll hold off with upgrading their iPhones or switch to Samsung, Apple would quickly reconsider. As it is, you've got lots of people complaining, but buying anyway, because they know they alone can't affect the market, and they need a decent phone.
This is related to a general observation that you can only "vote with your wallet" among the options available on the market. You don't have a way to vote for feature combination that isn't offered, for a product that doesn't exist.
I don't disagree, yet, I do, I guess? When I say "deserve," I don't mean in some cosmic moral sense, but more in a bland cause-effect sense. Cthulhu would say something like: "Oh, uncoordinated buyers have little market power? Bad decision to be an uncoordinated buyer then, loser!" The condemnation and cruelty are not warranted, but the effects are the same.
Whether a bunch of buyers could accept this, decide to coordinate, etc., and what it would look like, is the thing I'm turning over. Like, to get really wild: what if you could join a buyer's group that restricted you? The downside would be a loss of freedom, but the upside would be access to market power. We seem to be OK making this bargain on the sell side with our employment...
There are obviously versions of this that could never work, but it would be very interesting if you could find one that could!
I hate it when people make this case, or in general anything along the lines of "revealed preferences". This hides a certain divide-and-conquer that's happening. A single individual can't, in general, influence the market with their purchasing behavior. A thousand buyers simultaneously switching vendors would register on someone's radar, but real buyers are uncoordinated. Consider the 3.5mm audio jack and phones. If all the people who were unhappy about Apple having the "courage" to drop it would band together and announce that they'll hold off with upgrading their iPhones or switch to Samsung, Apple would quickly reconsider. As it is, you've got lots of people complaining, but buying anyway, because they know they alone can't affect the market, and they need a decent phone.
This is related to a general observation that you can only "vote with your wallet" among the options available on the market. You don't have a way to vote for feature combination that isn't offered, for a product that doesn't exist.