Free Flow Life

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When was the last time you walked into a store to buy an item (from a kettle to a car) and the salesperson tried straight up to persuade you to buy the item with the least features (and probably lowest cost)? I honestly can’t think of a time for myself. Why is that? Apart from the obvious revenue implications for the salesperson it is largely because in western society we have come to demand more and more from the products we buy. Feature complexity in products is often seen as a measure of product evolution, social status and perhaps even a defacto measure of societal progress. More is better, apparently. How many of these features are wanted though and, more importantly (pun intended), how many are actually used?

It seems we feel compelled to “improve” upon earlier versions of things so as to “add value” so we add features. Is that really progress? Is that really added value? If the improvement is manufacturing innovation leading to lower cost or reduced environmental impact then I say great. However if I am now getting a more complex, more time-consuming to maintain and more costly to repair product as a consequence of the extra features it has that I don’t use then I struggle to see how this is actually progress. In fact, at its extreme it is actually the reverse. Something that is unnecessarily difficult to use, takes a lot of effort to keep running and is expensive to repair will create unconscious stress for many people.

Do a quick self audit. Think about five major product purchases you have made in the past 12 months. What percentage of the product’s features do you use? Do you need the other features at all? Could you have purchased a similar item that was simpler that still met your needs? Would you be any less happy if you did? As an example think about your mobile phone, your television, your toaster, your music player, your washing machine and your vacuum cleaner. I guarantee you they have features that you’ve not only never used but probably can’t even explain.

Now don’t get me wrong. This is not me being holier than thou. I am writing this post quite deliberately because I have been guilty all my life to this point of seeking out the latest and greatest things with the most features, only to never use them. For example, it dawned on me recently that all I ever do with our mid-range home theatre system is turn it on and switch between DVD and TV. There is so much about it I don’t understand and I have never used.

This week I had the opportunity to make a change for the better. Our old, multi-function, top of the range oven broke a while ago. Advice to us was replace don’t repair (another modern philosophy). It became clear to me very quickly as we discussed it at home that we didn’t need an oven with a million functions we never use, that are all controlled by a complex electronic module (the failed part) and that now was going to cost an exorbitant amount of money to repair. We assessed what our basic needs were and went shopping on that basis. We now have a brand new oven that I installed and we used for the first time last night. It meets all our needs. It is simple and it cost less than double the price of the broken part and less than a third the price of our original oven. I am very happy with our purchase.

Fewer features, fewer worries. A simpler life.

How much unnecessary consumer complexity do you have in your life?

Please use the comments area to discuss.

photo: ToniVC