Meaningless choice is no choice

I’m a firm believer in being able to make the important decisions in my life, free from interference, whether from the government, corporations, or just plain busybodies. But choice, like most other things, can be more illusion than reality.

When the government tried to make some sense of a basically unfair health care system nearly a decade ago, the rallying cry of the fear-mongers in the insurance industry lobby was that people “wouldn’t be able to choose” their own doctors. In a sense, they were right. People who had a cozy relationship with a trusted old doctor might find that they had to go to someone else.

On the other hand, people who don’t have such a relationship, which includes most people, often find that their ability to choose is a mockery. People move frequently and often find themselves in a place with few friends and no knowledge of the local doctors. They are “free” to choose — as long as you count the “stick the pin in the phone book” method as a way of choosing. Most have neither the time nor resources to investigate, research, and interview the hundreds of doctors available to them. How much easier it would be to have someone to pre-screen and qualify the doctors, as many managed care plans do.

Most of us are faced with the daunting task of having to choose a long-distance company. With scores of “choices” in both companies and pricing plans, it could take weeks with a spreadsheet and a pack of tarot cards to make a real decision. Again, my suspicion is that most people simply wither under the weight of so many choices and just take a stab at it. The kicker comes when the company you’ve chosen decides to change its rate plan within months of your signing on. You could change then, but you’d have to start the process all over again.

But phone service isn’t the only area where excess choice causes some people to shut down and avoid making a truly informed decision. Do you know what it says in your bank’s terms of service agreement? (My own bank’s runs 6,000 words of legal gobbledygook.) If you have online banking, you’ve agreed to it by clicking on the “Agree” button to continue signing on. If you’re like me, you just agreed and went on with your life. Even if you bank offline, by simply using the service, you automatically agree to the terms. I doubt if many people get the terms from several banks and spend a lot of time comparing them.

But should you or I get into a dispute with the bank, the bank’s lawyers will argue that we read and agreed to the terms of service — which can change daily, by the way — and chose the bank “freely” on the basis of those terms. Did you really?

Credit cards provide another area in which too many choices provide no real choice at all. There are hundreds of cards, all with different rates, annual fees, terms of service, and inducements for you to sign up. Who really sits down and makes the comparison? Or do you just take the one that offers you frequent flier miles, despite the fact another card might be a better bargain in the long run — even taking the free miles into account?

I was recently informed by the bank that provides my most-used card that the next time I placed a charge on the account, I would forever sign away one of my most important rights under the Constitution — the right to seek redress of my grievances through the courts. Instead I had to agree to be mediated by some group unknown to me, but which I suspect would not be very pro-consumer. If it were, the bank would be running in the opposite direction, instead of embracing it.

Again, I was presented with a choice that was none at all. What choice did I have? I could have dropped the card — only to find, I’m sure, that all its analogs were either on board with that scheme or seriously considering it. I could do without a credit or debit card, but just try living a normal life without one — especially if you travel or want to shop online. Again, a theoretical choice, but no real one.

Shopping online has its own drawbacks. If you decide to shop, most online operations will quote you wonderful privacy policies and will display them proudly on their site. Many are fatally tainted by exceptions and doublespeak. The worst exception of all is that they reserve the right to change the terms of the policy at will — and without offering you the opportunity to remove your personal data from their systems when they do.

Theoretically you have the choice to read the policy and decide whether to do business with the site. But if they are free to change their policy, and you’re not free to withdraw your personal data, you have no choice at all.

Deregulation came in two decades ago on a promise of giving consumers more choices. Instead, it has given us airlines that care more about profits than security, rolling blackouts and extortionate utility rates in California, and banks with policies and pricing that range from confusing to predatory. Meanwhile, consumers find themselves adrift in a sea of so-called choices with no land in sight.

Most of us are faced with too many areas in which we must choose — and too many options available in each area. To decide among them in an informed way is virtually impossible. Although some of us may doggedly research one or two areas that interest us greatly, that would leave precious little time to do justice to the others.

For a choice to be worthwhile, it must be meaningful. At the very least, that means there need to be acceptable alternatives and some way for the person making the choice to reasonably understand the options. Without that, there is no choice at all.

If you choose, you can visit our Ethics Matters forum at www.infoworld.com/forums/ethics or write to me at [email protected].

Source: www.infoworld.com