Seller competition manufactures ever new consumer needs, which in turn amplifies individual variation

Evidence

For here we find not only the previously mentioned source of specialization but rather the deeper one in which the seller must seek to produce in the person to whom he wishes to sell ever new and unique needs. The necessity to specialize one’s product in order to find a source of income which is not yet exhausted and also to specialize a function which cannot be easily supplanted is conducive to differentiation, refinement and enrichment of the needs of the public which obviously must lead to increasing personal variation within this public. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 758

Categorization

• XREF: Sellers manufacturing new unique needs is the economic engine behind the stimulus overload the blasé attitude defends against—core causal chain for the essay. — connects to: Corporate optimization creates both new species and new precarities — , The Braided Reading EPUB: 5-Year…, 2370; Predetermined needs reduce the consumer to the eternal object of the industry — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 110; Competition has migrated from market structure into the very character of individuals — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 22 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Corporate optimization creates both new species and new precarities #complicates (0.55) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 2370