Cynicism; or, What's in a Name?

The Skeptical Entrepreneur is constrained to wonder whether or not he should be The Cynical Entrepreneur. Earlier this afternoon, TSE was being domestic, cleaning out a couple of mustard bottles that had emptied at about the same. They were both brown mustard; one was a nationwide, name brand; the other the lower-market store brand at the supermarket just down the street from the corporate office of Excellence in Entrepreneurship, Inc. Both had been reduced to blowing air when further squeezed, even after having had the dregs of the contents shaken down toward the spout.

Upon unscrewing the caps to rinse the bottles out, The Skeptical Entrepreneur found a significant quantity of product in each bottle. Apparently these products are so viscous that, since force follows the path of least resistance,  discrete masses of product retained their cohesiveness, rather than being shaken down to the nozzle and dispensed, despite TSE's best efforts to dislodge the product for which he had paid. It seems to TSE that this is, on a number of levels, in consonance with the manufacturer's, and the retailer's, design goals.

In the first place, such a degree of viscosity produces a product with balanced characteristics of spreadability, cohesiveness, and concentration of flavor, that are in line with the manufacturer's design specifications. That is, such a degree of viscosity is characteristic of "good," or at least "acceptable," product quality.

On another level, the level where the marketing mavens operate, such viscosity serves a commercial purpose that is, perhaps, better left unsaid. By reducing the amount of consumable (that is, accessible) product available to the consumer, a relatively highly-viscous product forces the consumer back that much sooner to the retail merchant who (profitably) sold the consumer the original container of product, to buy a replacement product. This increases the retailer's demand for product from the wholesaler, if any, and increases demand from the manufacturer, who manufactures more efficiently. Everyone wins, except for the consumer, who pays for, say, 8 ounces of product, but is only able to use 7.75 ounces, a waste of approximately 3%. If the consumer uses 6 containers of product per year, in 6 years, he will have bought a whole container of unusable product. Caveat emptor, indeed!

Of course, it is no surprise that manufacturers, and the retail chain would sell packages of product, at least part of whose content is inaccessible, and hence unusable. Perhaps cynicism is more appropriate for the consumer, rather than the entrepreneur.