Commoditization

Is that even a word?  Investopedia says it’s “when a product becomes indistinguishable from others like it and consumers buy on price alone, it becomes a commodity”.

I feel like in social media or even on the Internet there are two types of people.  The people that want to build relationships and the people that want to commoditize everything.  There is a whole group of social media “geniuses” (at least that’s what I think they are) that are building relationships.  Most go even further to build communities around what they do.  They create a buzz and spread it through their community and relationships.  People at this point become happy to share and pass on the buzz.  These people are laying the building blocks for success.  Success today and even more success tomorrow.

Then there’s a whole other group.  It’s more of get rich quick scheme.  They look to level the playing field on just about any and every product and service out there.  Then they search for every low hanging fruit they can.  Does this actually help anyone?  I guess you could argue that it helps the people get what they want.  What happens if they don’t know what they want or they don’t know where to start?  Are they better off having something, even if it’s not the right fit?

In the financial world in which I work I see a lot of commoditization as well.  People want to make it seem like all insurance is the same so all you have to do is price shop.  The problem becomes that your begin to compare apples and oranges on price.  Yes they are both fruit but they don’t both make a good pie.

What do you see being commoditized that is just driving you crazy?  Is this push for commoditization driven by the ease and flow of information?  By becoming more informed consumers level the playing field to the point where price becomes more important?  Maybe there is less value to be had.

Tagged as: commodity, product, service