Meanwhile on the internet, and Amazon especially, no one cares about quality any more. 9 out of 10 results are bottom tier unknown brands selling gloves that photograph well. They may be barely 1mm thick, appear to be sewn by someone wearing boxing gloves, and won't last two washes, but look at all that "choice". That's really crap masquerading as choice. Amazon seem to foolishly believe their reputation is immune to the shite on the marketplace and in every Amazon search.
On the internet good enough is increasingly rare. Even a "trusted" brand races to the bottom. For most physical things, clothes and shoes especially, I'm back to the shops and sad that so many of them have closed lately.
It shouldn't be this difficult!
> The infinite variety of online shopping tells us to set our expectations higher than that.
made me think a bit -- that used to be true for me, but the effect is trending in the opposite direction now. I have learned that it's very nearly impossible to tell if a product being shown is actually any good or not unless I'm already familiar with that company's products, regardless of what the product listing or product reviews say.
Yes, but my point is that the inability to tell whether or not a product is any good reduces analysis paralysis because it reduces the trustworthiness of the analysis.
I suspect online dating has some similar effects.
Today, it's really easy to go down a rabbit hole finding the best/best value/etc. place complete with lots of squinting at reviews to see if they're for real and/or have the same criteria you do.
I mostly don't sweat it too much but it's easy to do so.
I used to buy a lot of videotape at Price Club. I really liked the Maxell Hi-Fi tapes; they carried multiple grades of the Maxell line. After Costco took over, only Sony was sold.
Another example: the credit card partnerships. First Discover only, then Amex only, now Citi-branded Visa.
Some time ago I read about a paper on HN. It was explaining what can you do to maximize happiness in life. IIRC, one piece of advice therein was to avoid comparison shopping. You elaborated very clearly why.
In general, more choices don't make you happier -- in fact they usually have the opposite effect.
> When you're shopping in a physical store, you have no expectation that you're going to find the absolute, one-and-only perfect glove
Tinder for gloves problem sort of? The misleading impression of infinite possibilities on the Internet. In real life you optimize for local maximum only
> [T]he problem is that now, somewhat suddenly, perfect knowledge of the perfect glove, for you specifically, exists, if you simply do enough research.
When you're shopping in a physical store, you have no expectation that you're going to find the absolute, one-and-only perfect glove (or whatever) in the world for you. Even in the largest stores, you understand that their shelf space is limited, and therefore you set your expectations not to find the absolute, one-and-only perfect glove in the world for you, but to find a glove that's good enough for your needs. As long as you can find something that meets your requirements at an acceptable cost, you come away satisfied. Maybe not thrilled, but satisfied.
The infinite variety of online shopping tells us to set our expectations higher than that. Suddenly every thing we buy has to be the perfect version of that thing for us -- because if it isn't, that means we are lazy dullards who lacked the research skills and/or wherewithal to go out and find the perfect version. Instead of it being the fault of the shop that we had to settle for good enough, suddenly it's our fault.
The only way out of this trap is to realize that there is no such thing as the perfect product, that even the works of the finest craftspeople are going to have flaws and blemishes on them, and that good enough really is, you know, good enough.
Or, in other words, that happiness is not a glove that you can buy.