[spr93]

What were they a professor of? I don't see a paradox of choice here; none of those Colgate products, or anything else sitting on the shelf that's ADA accepted, is going to rot your teeth.

It is, however, a classic result of oligopoly. Oligopolists compete among themselves--and, more importantly, prevent entry from newcomers--by hyper differentiating their products. The "artificial" product differentiation also makes comparison-shopping harder and softens price competition between the oligopolists. It's a really fascinating, kind of counter-intuitive, but well known dynamic.

E.g., Crest offers a slightly differentiated product--"gleaming white plus plus" or whatever--and Colgate responds with "extra pearly white super plus."

Or a newcomer tries to sell "natural something," so the oligopolists introduce "natural stuff" and "pure friendly paste" to prevent customers that like the sound of "natural" from defecting to the newcomer.

Hotels are the classic case. Hilton and Marriott have tons of brands. Take extended stays for example. Marriott has three extended-stay hotel brands. No one thinks extended-stay hotel customers started a letter-writing campaign to Marriot saying, "I really want an extended-stay hotel that's just like Residence Inn, but with a different color combination. That's where you should invest your money. I don't need nicer furniture or lower prices, thank you. Just give me the new color scheme, thanks."

The dynamic is a counterintuitive feature of oligopolies, but it's very well known. But academia is hyper-specialized, so, yeah, everyone sees their own pet theory in everything.