Ubiquity is Everywhere

Five years of research for the music industry led us here at Taylor increasingly to the conclusion that the primary cause of the industry's woes is ubiquity (of which piracy is a subset). So much "free" music is readily available from so many sources (it's ubiquitous!), that two things happen: (a) more and more consumers say, "Why buy when I can just listen?" and (b) the very ubiquity of music makes it less "dear." People still love music, no question about that, and they still consume tons of music -- maybe more than ever. But because it's so available for free everywhere they turn, they're not buying the music they love. Why should they? They don't have to.

Our research bore this out. From 2004 through the first quarter of 2009, more and more consumers listened to music from an ever-wider variety of "free" sources (legal and illegal), and especially those "wide-variety-of-sources" users, over time, purchased less and less music compared with the market as a whole. Because they are music lovers, such consumers continued to purchase more music than other consumers, but their rate of decline in purchasing over time has been significantly greater than that of the average consumer.

It turns out the music industry isn't alone in the deleterious effects of ubiquity. Pay TV service (cable, satellite, phone company TV), consumer electronics, movies, and apparel are examples of other afflicted industries. Too much choice gets in the way of the purchase decision for consumers.

Here's some evidence of the point in a number of categories:

On consumer electronics shopping: "Despite falling prices and the increasingly consolidated retail space, consumers still despise shopping for consumer electronics. . . . The process [is] more complicated than it needs to be. . . . The selection at most stores remains almost mind-boggling, with products and models from a range of companies offering almost too much choice for buyers. Most shoppers . . . walk into the average CE retailer worried that they'll buy the wrong thing or end up paying too much." -- "Shopping for Electronics is a Drag," June 23, 2009

On movie watching: "It's a paradox of abundance. If people aren't pressured to see a movie in a specific time frame, viewers tend to put it lower on their priority list. When you have every choice in front of you, you have less urgency about any particular choice." -- Siva Vaidhyanathan, NYU professor of communication and culture

On jeans buying: "'I want a pair of regular jeans,' I said. 'Do you want them slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, baggy, or extra baggy?' the sales woman replied. 'Do you want them stone-washed, acid-washed, or distressed? Do you want them button fly or zipper fly?' I was stunned. The trouble was that with all these options I was no longer sure WHAT I wanted. Increased choice brings autonomy and control, but as the number of choices continues to grow, so do the negatives. Beyond a certain point the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. Choice no longer liberates; it debilitates." -- Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice

On pay TV service: The growing availability of video content online -- both long form and short form, both professionally produced and user-generated (and especially the widespread availability of "free" content (from both legal and illegal sites) -- will surely begin to erode pay TV service offerings, if it hasn't already.

And then there's my personal favorite example: hunting. [NOTE: I have never in my life hunted; I just love the book this comes from. It is the essence of scarcity.] It's essential that the "desired animal is uncommon. If it were everywhere there would be no question of not running into it. If it is unnecessary to look for it because it is always at hand, in inexhaustible supply, one does not worry about success in killing it. If the first blow fails, it is all the same; another animal is right at hand to receive a second aggression, and so on indefinitely." -- Jose Ortega y Gasset, Meditations on Hunting

The point: So much choice available from so many sources reduces sales (and kills the fun if you're a hunter). Consumers say, "Why buy?" Hunters ask, "Why hunt?" Ubiquity of choice in any given category makes the product (or service) less "dear," or more confusing (or both). Scarcity, which of course is the opposite of ubiquity, creates "value" in people's minds. When something of reasonable value is relatively scarce, its perceived value is heightened; when something of value is available everywhere you turn in seemingly unlimited choice, its perceived value is diminished, and at risk of being destroyed.

And increasingly, it seems, ubiquity is everywhere.