Consumer choice produces homogeneity, not the innovation it claims

Evidence

It is about having a wager that there is maybe a desire for the strange in people — people don’t already know what they want and that the things which they really end up most valuing maybe things which surprise them. What I’m arguing is that a lot of the features that neoliberalism, neoliberal culture claims for itself — which is innovation, the capacity to surprise, newness — none of these things are generated by neoliberal culture. The exact opposite is the case in fact. When you have a consumer model of “choice” — in inverted commas — what you get is this kind of bland homogeneity, a faux-diversity, concealing an extremely narrow bandwidth of options. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2169

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to Fisher’s capitalist realism thesis and to the ADDENDUM articles’ shared concern with how institutions shape horizons. — connects to: Product differentiation in mass culture functions as consumer classification, not real variety. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 95; Schumpeterian mutation requires enduring qualitative shifts driven by new consumer needs — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 155; Mass consumer choice over offered products is a token of powerlessness, not power — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 226 (+4 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: Dense, counterintuitive claim that choice-ethics delivers faux-diversity rather than surprise—a genuinely paradigm-shifting observation about consumer culture.

Broader Connections

• Product differentiation in mass culture functions as consumer classification, not real variety. #corroborates (0.92) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 95
• Mass consumer choice over offered products is a token of powerlessness, not power #corroborates (0.88) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 226
• Post-2015 consumer tech innovations added mostly marginal novelty rather than genuine transformation #exemplifies (0.82)
• Advertising budgets, not product merit, determine what consumers buy #corroborates (0.80) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 175
• Schumpeterian mutation requires enduring qualitative shifts driven by new consumer needs #complicates (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 155
• Technological rule substitutes causality for choice and effaces the Other #expands (0.74) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 623