The easy answer
to this question is this: people are people. Humans don't just demand basic necessities and
commoditized essentials. Every hobby, every sport, and every fashion each create dozens or
hundreds of demanded goods from their participants.
However, there's more to
it than that. An important thing about monopolistic competition (in which products are similar
but not fully interchangeable) is that demand generation is an essential part of any successful
business model. Marketers have demand generation down to a science.
Brands
like Gucci and Rolex position themselves as symbols of status, not just products. Video game
makers lock in console-exclusive titles, forcing true aficionados to own multiple systems that
would otherwise be redundant. The George Foreman Grill shows how much a celebrity endorsement
can encourage consumers to acquire a device they never knew they wanted until they saw its
sponsor's infomercial. Everything from golf clubs to cars to faucets to water bottles has been
advertised as a technical innovation with bells and whistles that make it somehow
better than the one you currently own.
The effectiveness
of these techniques accounts for a significant chunk of the variety that we see in the American
consumer marketplace.
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