Long Tail driving infinite chioce and fragmentation - is this good or bad?

pg 176
Consumers preferred movie theaters with more screens, and casinos with more tables; the more options they were given, the lower their perceived risk of being stuck with something they didn't want.

Research documented in paper, The Lure of Choice, that concluded that "more is better."

Availability and convenience equals more sales - this is why retail stores place all those little items next to the cash register.

pg 181
Vin Crosbie, media analyst and Corante writer, "each individual is a truly unique mix of generic and specific interests."
...the problem is that once people shift their attention online, they don't just go from one media outlet to another -- they simply scatter. Infinite choice equals ultimate fragmentation.

The shift from generic to the specific doesn't mean the end of the existing power structure or a wholesale shift to an all-amateur, laptop culture. Instead, it's simple a rebalancing of the equation, an evolution from an "Or" ear of hits or niches (mainstream culture vs. subcultures) to an "And" era...Mass culture will not fall, it will simply get less mass. And nich culture will get less obscure.

On the other side of the fence supporting a more cynical view of this is Christine Rosen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center...

"Are we promoting a creative individualism or a narrow individualism? An expansion of choices or a deadening of taste?

Rosen argues that infinite choice leads to "egocasting," the thoroughly individual and extremely narrow pursuit of one's personal taste.

Chris' response:
pg 191 Today we're not so much fragmenting as we are re-forming along different dimensions...over time the power of human curiosity combined with near-infinite access to information will tend to make most people more open-minded, not less.

We will still share our culture with others, but not with everyone.