Wired has an extremely insightful article on an emerging trend that they refer to as the “Good Enough Revolution” or “MP3 Effect,” a shift in consumer thinking that favors ease of use, continuous availability and low price over different manifestations of quality.

Within the marketplace, this paradigm has been extremely successful at reaching the widest possible audience and translating directly into more sales. The Flip Ultra single-use video camera is a perfect example of this. While it might not offer the most features or produce the highest picture quality, it’s not designed to capture the “expert” audience and is instead, built for the mainstream who are simply looking for utility.

There are a three very salient points from the piece that are worth noting:

“This trend is ideally suited to the times. As the worst recession in 75 years rolls on, it’s the light and nimble products that are having all the impact—exactly the type of thing that lean startups and small-scale enterprises are best at.”

“Companies that focus on traditional measures of quality—fidelity, resolution, features—can become myopic and fail to address other, now essential attributes like convenience and shareability.”

“Disruptive technologies often enter at the bottom of the market, where they are ignored by established players. These technologies then grow in power and sophistication to the point where they eclipse the old systems.”

I also thought it was interesting to see how this model not only transforming products (specifically technology), but is being to bleed over into service industries with the advent of e-lawyering – online documents and advice – and micro-clinics – streamlined versions of healthcare.

In the end this idea seem to be supported by the Pareto Principle which states that 20 percent of the effort, features, or investment often delivers 80 percent of the value to consumers, and as we’re seeing this increasingly becoming good enough.

[image via victoriapeckham]