Narratives

Image Credit - Nano Banana Pro

Grocery shopping with a toddler is nothing short of a TABATA workout. For some reason, my son goes from bumping into sofas and doors at home to gliding across aisles in stores like a trapeze artist. On one similarly exciting trip to the store, I was busy stopping my son from grabbing newspapers when a sports magazine fell down and out came a poster. While I wrestled my son away, I couldn’t help but remember my own teenage years.

Waiting and hoping for the perfect poster for months. Finally laying your hands on one you liked was the ultimate thrill. The real estate on the wall was limited, and so was the chance of having a poster you really liked. The scarcity only added to how emotionally invested I was about it. But the memory also triggered a conflict between abundance and value I think about often.

I have thousands of images on my phone, and I can change wallpapers on a whim. There’s no need to wait for the right poster. My favorite team shares a brilliantly edited Instagram story that easily doubles as a wallpaper. I enjoy the win, I support my team, I move on.

I see a similar pattern play out with music as well. My dad’s record collection is his pride - built album by album, over years. You didn’t just have the music; you had the artwork, the stories.

Today, I can build a playlist of 500 songs in an afternoon. I have access to most of the songs ever recorded, but I might not be able to recognise many in my Spotify Liked Songs. I remember the names of albums my dad owns.

The Paradox of Too Many Choices

Psychologist Barry Schwartz discovered something counterintuitive - when we have more options, we’re actually less satisfied with what we choose.

A 2000 study by researcher Sheena Iyengar showed a ten-fold difference in conversion with 70% fewer options. She set up a jam tasting booth at a grocery store. On some days, she displayed 24 varieties. On other days, just 6. When presented with 24 jams, 60% of shoppers stopped to look, but only 3% actually bought anything. With just 6 jams, fewer people stopped (40%), but 30% of them made a purchase.

This shows up everywhere now. Think about how we consume content.

The average Netflix user spends 18 minutes browsing before choosing what to watch.

Despite having access to 100 million songs, 80% of all Spotify streams go to just 1% of tracks.

We bail on Netflix shows within five minutes. We have started three different series in one night, dropped them all, and ended up rewatching Friends for the 47th time instead.

We have infinite options, so we retreat to comfort. The abundance that was supposed to free us has actually made everything feel disposable. There’s always something else, something potentially better, just one click away.

Curation: The New Scarcity

We are so overwhelmed by choice that curation has become an entire industry.

People pay sommeliers to choose wine for them from thousands of options. We book “curated experiences” at museums rather than wandering freely. Digital detox retreats charge premium prices to impose the limitation our grandparents lived with by default - no screens, no choice, just what’s in front of you. Subscription boxes deliver pre-selected products because even shopping for basics has become tiring.

Access isn’t the problem anymore, but attention is.

Curation has always been a status signalling business. In today’s world, attention is the new currency. It’s natural then that curation has evolved from choosing art pieces for museum walls to building systems that impose artificial scarcity and help us find more meaning.

The poster was curation by default. Someone had already filtered the infinite down to one choice. You just had to decide if you wanted it enough to put it on your wall.

Back to the original conflict.

Part of me genuinely misses the yearning that came with scarcity. The way anticipation amplified everything and limitations forced you to really commit to what you had.

But another part of me loves the abundance. The access. The ability to discover an obscure artist from another continent at 2 AM and fall completely in love with their music - something my dad could never have done with his limited record collection.

Maybe wonder hasn’t evolved. Maybe both versions coexist, and what we’ve actually lost is just the forced patience. The ability to sit with something long enough to really feel it, instead of optimizing for something better.

Here is a question for you.