I just noticed that Virginia Postrel is talking about "consumers and too much choice" in her latest post and Forbes column. The jam scenario is the same thing that my wife referred to a few weeks ago in the first post of a series of Marketing posts related to consumer choice, expanding choice, restricting choice, etc. and teasing apart the different forces at a more granular level for business advantage.
Update (3/18/05): Virginia Postrel references my wife’s posts. How circular this blogging thing can get!
Steve Shu