Why do people need paint in more than one or two colors? Why do people need multiple styles of clothes, beyond a "summer uniform" and "winter uniform"? Why do people bother to maintain both vi and emacs when only one is necessary?
Most of the time, any tape will do, but sometimes you want the perfect paisley to complement your wrapping paper choice. Since most people don't care most of the time, most stores that sell tape won't have more than one or two kinds, so you go to a specialty retailer to find the unusual stuff for unusual circumstances.
“Imagine you are a stage technician and you need to tape a lamp that gets very hot to a pillar,” Ghouneim says. “If you go to [DIY store chain] Bauhaus, they wouldn’t know what to do. But I can tell you that you need a polyester film with a special type of silicon glue that can stand up to 300 degrees. I have sticky tapes in my store that mere mortals would never dare to dream of.
When I go to a specialist store, which I do every so often, my choice has been made before I walk in. That's why I'm there; because I already know what I want, and I know that I can't find what I want in the supermarket or by trawling eBay. I'm just hoping the specialist store has it or can get it. I spend less time choosing in the specialist store.
https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/All...
We waste a lot of productivity on providing choice.
I don't think pure utilitarianism is the answer, but it seems we could do better.
But then, noone needs party balloons at all ...