An Illusion of Choice ?

The biggest problem I get when looking to buy stuff is finding the answer to the question : "Which One ?"

It's actually another one of the contrasts that are built into my personality. On the one hand, I have the most boring inertia, going for chicken fried rice from the Chinese, sausage & chips from the Chippie or meat feast pizzas from Pizza Hut. What can I say, I like 'em :-) The contrast comes from where a place does stuff where it's not an obvious choice, I'll try and avoid having the same thing twice.

One remark I came out with over the weekend (was up seeing mum & dad) was that all the morons who gave BMW drivers a bad name seem to have bought Audi's ... The Audi drivers seem intent on earning their reputation. I've got nothing against the cars, Audi make a fine automobile. However, their drivers seem to trade in their good sense with their last car.

So where does "illusion of choice" come in then ?

On Sunday, we got rocketed past by a Passat driver ... On the kind of tight single carriageway road that links the A roads in Lincolnshire up. Cue remark of "Ahh - that's a poor man's Audi".

What's the difference between a lot of what we buy anyway ? There's not actually that much. The "poor man's Audi" has a lot more truth in it than the motor people would like us to think. A Puma is a modified Fiesta and the Vectra chassis is also the basis for the Croma, 159, Signum and a Saab. Peugeot diesel engines made their way into quite a few cars in their time. The core of this HP laptop is shared by most of the other laptops out there made at the same time. Is that phone a Nokia or a rebadge ? Is that monitor made by Dell or is it actually a Samsung ?

Sometimes we think we're buying one thing when we're actually buying another. Or there's 3 supposedly different products on the shelf but they're the same thing under the skin. So how do we negotiate that "illusion of choice" ? I reckon it's a matter of keeping an eye on things like price, extras and possibly even build quality. So for those Vectras, Cromas, 159s, Signums and Saabs, it's which manufacturer has gotten the most out of the basic shell.

My advice ? If you're buying something, attempt to make the best of the information available, to try and see through the various illusions out there. Things like investigating the less obvious, the features that don't make it to the spec sheet. Like which side of the laptop is the power connector and whether you need iPodFM to listen to your music or will it be easier to plug it in somewhere.

There's always a choice, although the answer could well be "I ain't buying" :-)

PS Had an excellent morning today. If I get a hello from one pretty lady, that's enough to bring out the grin. I had hello's from 3 pretty ladies today !