Because choice has always been a bad thing. That's why people stopped buying cars. And just think of all the people who never buy a house because they just have too many choices.

people stopped buying cars/houses because the economy tanked and they either lost their jobs or could no longer afford to pay rent/mortgages.

I don't believe it. People answer surveys the best they can, but a survey can't read minds. Someone who says "I am interested but won't buy because I don't know what I want" aren't really interested.

Not to mention the simple fact that they were already capable enough of making a choice among the dumbphones, where there is probably an order of magnitude more choices.

If you don't believe this phenomenon is real, read "The Paradox of Choice" by the psychologist Barry Schwartz. The classic example from six years ago is how many cell phone/payment plan options there were from just one vendor. Consumers are being asked to make intelligent decisions based on noise rather than data, and they're making the intelligent choice: not buying.

Frankly, I suspect one of the reasons for the iPhone and iPod's success has been the bewilderment of choice: faced with no other really salient facts, many people think, "Apple makes good stuff. The heck with trying to compare hundreds of choices on the basis of cost/benefit. I'll just buy what I know is probably a pretty good product."

whoooooooosh!

No one said choice was a bad thing, I read "too many choices".
And you may want to stay away from referencing the auto industry if you're trying to make an argument for choice. GM will be the first to tell you that too much choice can definitely be a fat and unhealthy thing.

i'd be curious about the complete breakdown of demographics in this sample group. i'm willing to bet a majority portion of this group that is confused by choice are older, and confused my lots of technology in general. In 5 to 10 years, plenty of older demographics will have no trouble choosing and using "smartphones" or whatever they'll be called at that point.

very tech savvy and the number of features on a handset excites them and bewilders them at the same time. They don't like reading manuals and get frustrated at features they can't figure out. Apple has this beat with the iPhone because many people can pick them up and get to the easiest features quickly and then can expand since the interface is relatively consistent. I've never used a Windows handset so I don't know how complicated it is. I could easily handle a complicated handset because I've always enjoyed reading manuals.

But I understand people who can't figure out menus and I would never try to pack so many features into a handset that the average person can't figure them out. That's why I don't understand the tech-head snobs that think because a handset has every feature in the book and beats the crap out users trying to figure out how to access the features think a Windows handset is such a great device. For them yeah, but not for the average user. I say, don't build devices for tech-heads, build them for the not so tech savvy and you'll make a lot more money from sales.

Choice can be confusing for the uninformed especially when it comes to weighing particular features. Try to buy what you need the most in features and find out if they're simple to access.

For me the cost of the plans is too high. Two phones with data and text (otherwise why get a smartphone), is about $200/month or $2400/year. I'd rather pay $40/month for two voice-only phones, and spend the difference on two new PCs a year (or other technology).