My experience of upgrading my mobile phone recently made me think about the nature of choice, and why our desire to choose is sometimes selective. Does the giddying range of channels, through which we can access an ever-growing list of things we never even knew we wanted, help us to be better informed and make better purchasing decisions? Or does it, in fact, encourage us to retreat into entrenched positions, defeated into default choices through the entropy of uberinformation?
I wanted to switch to an Android system phone, away from my much-despised iPhone mk I, and had decided was going to upgrade to the new Samsung Galaxy S3. Although not particularly in love with my present provider, Orange, they had a competitive offer for the phone, and the path of least resistance to attain my object was reason enough to stay with them. But I was shocked out of this acquiescence through the sheer unwillingness of Orange to help me easily get what I wanted. Pressures of work meant I could only upgrade my phone at the weekend, and although the phone was out of stock, I was prepared to wait a week, since they had a delivery due in the coming days. However, the Orange store would not hold one back for me, even if I committed to a new contract in advance. Orange insisted I do the paperwork, then leave the store with the phone. This meant taking my chances they wouldn't sell out between the new shipment arriving and the following weekend - or, indeed, any number of subsequent weekends. Quite a risk for a new, in-demand phone.
So I switched provider that day. Eight years of continuous patronage disappeared, as I picked a new provider who could get me what I wanted. Looking back, I realise it wasn't an impulsive decision, but something I had unconsciously wanted to do; the number of times I actually make contact with a service provider like a mobile phone company is very few, so they need to make those count. The exasperating experience in the store that day reminded me the previous occasion Orange contacted me directly - via text to tell me last January they were increasing their prices. No apologies, no "we value your custom", just a matter-of-fact 160-character SMS. In an era when it's almost easier to change phone company than to change your pants, it seemed Orange were determined to give me reasons to go commando.
Although poor customer service had goaded me into choosing something better, I could make that decision with reasonable confidence, as there was very little difference in my mind between major mobile phone companies. Coverage is no longer to point-of-difference it once was, so it just comes down to the tariff and, more importantly, the phone itself. Committing to a new phone is actually the biggest part of a new mobile contract, since it's the large carrot they dangle to get the next two years of your life.
For those unfamiliar with the workings of Steve Jobs's creation, the iPhone is a closed system. It offers stylish and elegant ways to perform most functions you could ask of a portable computer on Steve's terms: Apple approved and controlled programmes all the way, subject to the whims and hissy fits of Jobs's own obsessions. There are no crossovers, mashups or collaborations, no breaking new ground through open-source, collective ideas-generation. Apple is the anti-Internet, an overbearing parent. And the worst manifestation of this is the Apple default media interface: iTunes, an idea so bad I still can't believe people put up with it.
That they do reveals a paradox at the heart of the choice. The hefty smartphone contract you are forced to take with a mobile company, in order for them to recoup the handset costs, means people will be cautious in their choices, afraid of being stuck with a lemon for two years. The explosion in the range of things you can do with your phone these days - and our increased expectations of them - have, on the one hand opened up many more choices in the way we shop, discover, interact, create and keep in touch. Yet at the same time, they increase the risk associated with making the wrong choice. Technology has, in many ways, set us free, and yet that freedom has created its own dependency that limits choice. We don't need to know which way is north because we have portable GPS devices. We don't need to write letters any more because we can keep in touch in realtime. This stuff is now too important to be left to chance, or the risk of discovering a new way doing things. Better the devil you know, even if it doesn't let you choose your own ringtone.
Orange set up their upgrade system for their own administrative convenience, forgetting about the convenience of the customer. My reaction was a natural one in a market that offers a competitive choice. Apple offers a different type of inconvenience for its own reasons of control rather than the benefit of the customer, and yet people seem happy to give up this choice for the benign dictatorship of the iPhone product. After the death of the Wizard of Odd himself last October, tech speculators have been waiting for Apple to stumble without Jobs's guiding hand. They look for signs of a lack of innovation, staleness as indicators of decline. I hope that any such slip, when it comes, will be a sign of people realising they do have a choice.
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