Henry Would Be Proud

I am referring to Henry Ford of course. I was just skimming through an article, or to be more accurate, a press release. I could not help but notice that Ford is claiming to have streamlined their consumer website to work more effectively with their (not yours) reality. This term from the article got my attention; "complexity reduction initiative" I finished the article but that was all I needed to know.

"You can have any color as long as its black", Henry's famous slogan needs to be dusted off, fed through an A-D converter and brought into the digital present. “We want to make sure that our consumer-facing interface on the Web, is in sync with those buildable combinations.” I am taking a wild guess that Ford still wants to give you the 'impression' of choosing a car, yet the choices are already made for you.

We have become comfortable with this phase of online 'choosing' that now allows Ford to accelerate their agenda and limit choices greatly. Just as we think we think as individuals, we think we are selecting our next car. The bright reader finally understands why I don't vote. You are choosing a pre-selected choice, sounds like a waste of time to me.

"It would alleviate a lot of the confusion if consumers had a choice of vehicle that matches typical availability.” I love when articles spell it out for me; my brain never had it so good. Consumers are dumb sheep, which need to be led to the cage to be sheared. Let me repeat Consumers are well educated, computer savvy individuals who want to experience stress-free transactions. See what I did there, I just covered your whole day in two very different sentences.... or are they?

Ford is saying we know what you want so we already picked it for you.Just as with our media, our food, our leaders, our rights, we have so many choices, they just happen to be the same choice, one, which you did not choose. The maze and the mouse comes to mind, we are the same as mouse ‘choosing’ a path to the cheese or in this case a car exactly like our neighbors. Why the huge customization market? That way we may have a chance of finding our copy-cars in the parking lot. Why do you think the OEM's are in the custom parts business now? Besides profit? It placates the herd so we don't realize we are being pushed through the chute.

Tim