The illusion of value in product visibility

Movies will have you believe that all fights happen in bars. But to me, few places feel quite so ready to break into a spontaneous brawl as the line to get on an airplane.

And sure, there is sometimes utility to boarding the plane early. When my son was young, it was helpful to have an extra few minutes to get him settled. And you’re guaranteed to have overhead bin space if you need it.

But most bags do make it onboard, the seats are assigned, and we’re all leaving and arriving at the same time. The value of being in Group C instead of Group D is marginal at best.

So then why do people crowd?

Some of it is about social standing. In a million ways, humans pay to demonstrate our privilege and that is unlikely to end anytime soon.

But there is another factor at play: people like to feel like they are getting their money’s worth. And airlines have clearly connected boarding early to value. Early boarding is associated with Executive Diamond 100K Premier customers, higher-priced ticket types, and even explicit charges if you fly Spirit or Frontier.

So if you’re sitting in the waiting area and they call your group but you don’t board, you feel like you’re giving up value that you’ve already paid for. And humans are extremely sensitive to that form of loss.

This is, of course, a deliberate strategy by the airlines – controlling who gets to go first costs them nothing, yet creates the illusion of value. But there are plenty of times when “use it or lose it” is an unintentional consequence of designs that creates unnecessary feelings of missed value.

All-you-can-eat subscriptions like Netflix are an easy example. By putting so many options on the front page, they maximize the chances you’ll find something to watch. But they also highlight all the things you might want to watch (and more importantly, are paying for) but will never actually have time to enjoy.

Ditto for multi-function devices. There are a plethora of tools in my garage that can absolutely do more than I am capable of (I’m looking at you, compound sliding miter saw) and every time I use them for my basic needs, I’m keenly aware that I’m somehow missing out.

In a world where products compete on value, it often feels like the optimal is simply stuffing in as many sources of value as possible. And it is great that Netflix has many options and my miter saw can do many things. 

The key to balancing the gain of more features and the loss of not using them is to control how visible those features are. Netflix can make fewer recommendations. The miter saw can hide the more advanced controls. As applied behavioral scientists, we can sometimes create greater perceived value simply by being more direct with the highest value features and deemphasizing the visibility of those that most people will never get value from.