This chapter explores the concept of choice, discussing its potential overwhelming effects and the benefits of online marketplaces. It also highlights how search engines like Google order and filter the chaotic internet, empowering users with relevant content and individual choices.
Russ Roberts talks with Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine about the ideas in his new book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. Topics include the weird world of internet distribution and production, how the Sears catalog of the 1890s was the predecessor to Amazon books in the 1990s, the economics of choice and the role of filters, and the challenges of wrapping our minds around emergent phenomena.