• The New Yorker, Wednesday, March 24, 2010 10:28 AM

James Surowiecki trots out a whole bunch of interesting observations, data and examples in his "Financial Page" column this week to support the notion that the middle is the worst position you can find yourself in these days -- at least as far as branded products go.

Take Apple, which has found that you can succeed by charging more for superior products. Or take Flip, which has found that you can succeed by charging a lot less for what Wired recently dubbed the "good enough revolutions" and Surowiecki calls "well-priced adequacy" or the realization that you can flourish "by selling things that aren't bad and cost a lot less."

But, as General Motors has learned, the explosion of information enables consumers to easily gauge differences in quality, which means that brands matter less. "In effect, the more information people have, the tighter the relationship between quality and price: if you can deliver a product or service that is qualitatively better, you can charge top dollar," he writes. "But if you can't deliver the quality, you can't get the price."

Read the whole story at The New Yorker »