“Feature creep” is not just a jokey Dilbert dilemma — it’s a threat to the free-market economy
Digital Journal — Recently I was trying to figure out the instant-messaging feature on my cellphone, when it struck me that there is no better example than the cellphone to illustrate the collapse of the free-market system.
Before I could find the IM instructions in the 80-page manual, I had to wade through the phone’s other features — camera, global positioning system, personalized ringtones — and I became overwhelmed by all the bells and whistles that had been stuffed into this tiny thing.
The problem was that so many of the other features, all of them easily classifiable as “cool,” were not add-ons I had considered when I bought the phone. When I think back to how the salesman had recited the marvellous litany of what the phone could do, I can’t recall him talking about the phoning function.
Geeks call this “feature creep,” which they define as an overemphasis on adding features to a product to the detriment of overall design. Cellphones can now include (besides the camera and GPS) an MP3 player, streaming television, multimedia instant messaging, video games, a walkie-talkie, a Web browser, email and a flashing, diamond-shaped antenna. There are others but life is too short to compile a definitive list. We now live in a world dominated by the Swiss Army cellphone.
I began to suspect that no user had ever been consulted about this feature bundling. I tried to imagine whom the designers had in mind when adding these frills, and I ended up picturing a monster with three brains, 26 tiny fingers and very deep pockets.
While a cornucopia of sexy features helps define the industry’s marketing concept, a lot of us are left with conflicting feelings. We can no longer tell the difference between what we need and what we want. We are agog at what the toys can do, yet we want to know why we simply can’t get the gadgets to do what we bought them to do.
End users — you and I — are the least important people to handset makers. Instead, cellphone design is driven by telecommunications carriers, who want to sell you services, Internet connections and television signals in a hundred different ways.
To further muddy the free-market model, consumers can’t always buy the specific phone or plan they want. They have to put the cart before the horse: canvass the carriers for the package that suits them best, then select the cellphone that complements the plan. Or they can pay more and get a cellphone souped up with everything and anything — whether they like it or not. Few other products are sold this way.
While the rest of the high-tech world is hurtling towards interoperability, the cellphone business is defined almost exclusively by a dizzying array of features and service options, no combination of which is ever ideal. That’s not an accident. Bundles are specifically designed to contain both useful and useless features. It’s like cable television: To get a specific channel, you have to buy a “package” filled with trash you don’t want. It’s sadly fitting that the companies that package cable TV channels are the same companies that package cellphones and their services.
Unlike the free-market system, this tactic is set up so that your demand for a certain product is not likely to be satisfied. Carriers demand more features because their religion is based on the model of packaging extras in imaginative ways to create multiple revenue streams from one product.
The best example of this in Canada was the war fought a few years ago between the telephone and cable companies over broadband Internet service. For years, services such as digital subscriber lines (DSL) and cable were limited to high speed at one speed. The carriers, unable yet to repackage that single product into a multi-headed beast, were forced to sell it at about $45 per month, just below what was profitable.
Business languished like this until the carriers were able to offer bundled services to make the basic Internet service more solvent: different speeds, anti-virus software, child-friendly surfing, larger inboxes and so on. When they added cellphone services and TV signals into the pot, they could mix and match products and services to create profitable combinations.
That’s why you end up paying for things you would think are basic cellphone services, such as voicemail or call display. Add fees for “system access,” 911, text-messaging and browser usage, and that monthly bill makes beepers sound inviting.
Listen to the cellphone providers, and they’ll tell you their motivation: to deliver services made specifically to increase the average revenue per user. And the gadget is advertised as not just a telephone, but an adventure.
For many people, this marketing concept is overload. We are often turned off by complicated gadgets, though we hate to admit it — we see ourselves as hip consumers to whom technological ignorance is disgraceful.
So feature creep is not merely a result of a bunch of acne-ridden engineers smoking joints while running loose in a funhouse. Nor is it the result of handset makers trying to create the ultimate widget. The business of cellphones is driven by the idea that the units are tar-babies to which carriers can stick marketable accessories.
The Japanese, renowned for inventing the flashiest toys, appreciate the opposite approach. Addressing the feature creep backlash, last year Kyocera introduced a cellphone called the Tu-Ka S, marketed to an older generation overwhelmed by the complexity of the average Asian phone. The ad campaign features two stern-looking grandparents who break out into smiles when they realize the Tu-Ka S is just like their old, familiar phone. The tag line reads, “The simpler the better.”
We’ve yet to reach that level of Zen in North America. But we can see it coming: The mind-bending complexity of cellphones has become standard fare for stand-up comedians, most notably John Heffron, winner of Last Comic Standing 2: “Can I get one that you can use as a phone?”
That is what people want. But they’re not going to get only what they want when they buy cellphones — at least not in the foreseeable future, because carriers are driven by their desire for profits, not by their customers’ demands. And that’s not what the free market is all about.
WHY FEATURE CREEP ISN’T GOING AWAY
DR. KIM VICENTE feels your pain. He’s studied how consumers react to new products, and he’s even helped manufacturers design gadgets that are easy to use. A professor of engineering at the University of Toronto, Vicente is the author of The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way People Live With Technology, a fascinating look into the minds behind the machines. — Interview by David Silverberg
Digital Journal: A lot of gadgets are loaded with features. Has this trend reached its peak?
Vicente: I’ve noticed how the difference between a PDA and cellphone is being blurred. Then again, it may be time for the market to return to simplicity, but it’s up to the people to decide. As it stands now, more companies are going the feature creep route.
Digital Journal:Why do manufacturers rely on feature creep when designing products?
Vicente: First, different people use different commands, so manufacturers want to please as wide a market as possible. Second, the marketing department wants flashier gadgets that do all these cool things. Third, designers and computer scientists want to use their technical expertise and show off their technical sophistication.
Digital Journal:And prices always increase with a supposedly souped-up product.
Vicente: Yeah, and what consumers don’t know is that adding something to a car — say, a GPS screen — increases the car’s price but also the profit margins for the manufacturer.
