Extreme uselessness

I often hear that the quality of the products is now disgusting, not what it was before. I do not agree with this and do not understand those who think so. Perhaps the matter is not in quality, but in quantity? It turns out that in a very high-standing store of one famous economy network, which is closest to my house, rice of six varieties is sold. Has anyone could imagine what is possible 20 years ago? Not sausage, not bread, but rice? This is a high store near the house. In some hypermarket, I am sure that this figure can still be increased.

An example of rice is not the most indicative. I managed to count 21 types of mayonnaise, 6 - crab sticks, 12 - pickled corn and 5 - chicken eggs. For some reason, quails are not sold in this store. Of these products, 45,360 crab salad options can be built. If you have it twice a day, then enough for 62 years. And if you cook the Olivier salad?

I do not understand those people who complain about modern products, that they are all equally bad and it is impossible to choose something for themselves. Small choice and low quality were when (I was very small) my parents went to Moscow for sausage on weekends, kept it in a grid, hanging out the window. When in my town there were ice cream of only two types: for 13 and 15 kopecks, and their presence was at the same time a rarity, more often - a complete absence. When there were only two channels on TV, demonstrating the programs of dubious Soviet content, and everyone watched them with pleasure, especially the “song of the year”. Today I have 54 channels, for every taste, but I often catch myself automatically sorting them out with the help of the remote control, I can’t stop for more than a few seconds. Indeed, strange. The present gave us such a huge selection of everything, any quality and quantity, and we are in some confusion, in uncertainty and even often in irritation. Hence - dissatisfaction with the quality of the goods and the accusation of the manufacturer of greed.

It is no secret that, we, people, are always trying to find a certain rational cause of what is happening to us. If this reason is not or it is unknown to us, then we simply invent it. At the same time, we tend to justify our own actions with external circumstances. And the actions of other people are their personal characteristics. Remember, when you are late for work, traffic jams, ice or colds are always to blame, and our unwillingness to go 10 minutes earlier than to do with it. But when your colleague is late, then, of course, his inevitability and irresponsibility is to blame. So maybe the roots of our dissatisfaction should not be sought in the actions of manufacturers and retail chains, but to pay attention to ourselves?

In economic theory, there is such a concept - “marginal utility”. The meaning is very simple - each subsequent unit of consumed goods reduces the usefulness that this product brings to the consumer. For example, eat one ice cream and enjoy you. Then the second - there is already less pleasure, but it seems nothing. On the fourth, you doubt that it is tasty ice cream. On the sixth you are at a loss, how someone can like this muck at all. To eat the eighth of you can only be forced by the KGB Major in the basement on Lubyanka. Because with each of the next unit of goods, its usefulness (in the economic, non -medical sense of the word) decreases, passing through “uselessness” into “negative utility” - we will call it “harmfulness”. The theory of marginal utility does not deal with the issue of choice, only the issue of consumption and the establishment of the price of goods. But if you think about it, then the “choice” is also a product. A store with a richer assortment attracts more buyers. The Internet provider with an abundance of additional services - more customers. A phone with a large number of functions is better sold. What then to be with the maximum usefulness of the “choice” as a product? If we have no choice at all, then any opportunity to get any product has high utility. Therefore, parents rode into a well -deserved single weekend to the capital for sausage, not sparing eight hours on the road. When we have a choice of three varieties of sausage in a store near the house - this is wonderful, it gives pleasure, and the extreme usefulness of the “choice” itself is still high. We can make a rational decision by buying exactly the variety that we need. When these sausages become two dozen, the boundaries between their characteristics begin to be lubricated. Regardless of what and by whom they are made, they begin to seem the same to us. Not just the same, but equally bad, worse than those that were before. Manufacturers produce new varieties, expanding the ruler and additionally smoothing the difference, worsening perceived quality. In more and more, we are once buying a favorite type of sausage, sighing, complaining that he is "not like that." An increased error price becomes a separate depressing factor. Remember how we used to relate to the small shortcomings of the purchased goods, how we themselves brought to mind a clumsy kitchen set. And how today we are indignant about a slight scratch. In those days when there was only one sausage, the responsibility for the purchase of a tasteless or “spoiled” loaf lay completely at the store. We simply had no other choice, we bought what was available. Today the store is also responsible for the quality. But for the wrong choice, we can only blame ourselves. It was we, so rational, who voluntarily managed to grab the expired product from the shelf. And no one likes to be guilty.

The quality and accessibility has grown, and the feeling of satisfaction falls. With each new option, the ultimate usefulness of the concept of “choice” itself decreases, turning into “uselessness” and even “harmfulness”, inevitably reducing the perceived quality of each individual option. If the choice is too large, then the value of the goods for the final consumer may be lower than in the lack of choice.

Sergey Belkov