Why too much choice is stressing us out

Very few of us feel competent enough to choose between an overwhelming amount of options. When you are offered 156 different kinds of retirement plans, for instance, it can make you miserable to make a competent choice.  For that reason, it might be easier not to make a choice.

But even if we do make a choice, we can end up less satisfied. It is easy to imagine that you might have missed an attractive alternative.

• With too many options, people increasingly rely on recommendation engines to help them cope with choice.
• We pay more for the same stuff. To watch the good things on TV now involves paying monthly subscriptions to many services, where once you only had to pay a TV license. 
• Privatization of companies leads to many companies offering the same service - but we still feel that we are possibly paying too much.
• Education becomes a consumer good.