2023-09-10
The availibity of choices is a fairly good indicator of freedom that one has. However, in recent times, in techological field, there has been an explosion of available choices. Take for example, social media. Once upon a time, it was Yahoo Messenger ruling the social space of web, then Myspace, then Orkut, and Facebook. But now, there is a plethora of choices. Though it is good that there is no monopoly, but it also means your social connections are scattered and your attention is diffused in all these apps.
A similar explosion has happened in note-taking apps. From Evernote, to Notion to Roam and Obsidian. You have too many choices, and you cannot truly settle for one as the new ones keep arriving. Further, the interoperability is not that great, imposing costs on lock-in. The adoption of Markdown seems a great solution, but there are too many flavours and app specific extensions. I have recently moved to Obdisian from Dokuwiki due to its availability on multiple platforms and ease of writing. But the migration has not been smooth after investing years in Dokuwiki with 1000+ important notes. Sticking to one choice seems limiting when new technology (and features) arrives. Perhaps we are destined to be app-hoppers in this area. The only true permanence is pen and paper. 🙌
Sometimes, too many choices limits us. And having limitations frees us from the pandora of choices. In the context of society, this reminds me of Emile Durkheim’s statement that “people are free when their passions are constrained by external forces”. Otherwise we become slave to our passions.
To conclude, I must say, having choices are great. But having too many limits productivity. This has been studied and proven.