Seth has linked to a Google search for “Moen’s Law of Bicycles”, in order to explain what “Moen’s Law Of Bicycles” is. Unfortunately, the blogosphere being what it is, Seth’s own diary entry is now the number one hit on his own Google search. The second entry is currently another blog entry from someone else, noting that Seth is now the number one hit on his own search. In an attempt to prevent the link spiralling into meta-uselessness, I’ll now invoke fair use to quote Moen’s Law of Bicycles in its entirety, and hope my overuse of the phrease “Moen’s Law of Bicycles” will throw this somewhere near the top:
MOEN’S LAW OF BICYCLES
In the mid-1970s, bicycles suddenly became very popular in the USA. Massive numbers of people were suddenly in the market, few of them knowing anything about bicycles, and many could distinguish poorly if at all between good equipment and bad; good customer service and bad. Consequently, poorly made bicycles (which cost less to make) undercut well made ones (and poor customer service out-earned the good variety), because their superior value ceased to be perceived. Over time, the overall quality of available bicycles declined considerably, almost entirely because of this dynamic with customers, recovering only after the fad ended, years later.
Moen’s Law holds that “Good customers make for good products.” Quality thrives only when people can tell the difference. When they haven’t a clue about the products and how they work, schlock merchandise prevails.
(From A First Look At You-Know-What, Blue Notes, Sept/October 1995 Issue)