SHORT ESSAY

Sorry Sophie, Hobson’s Is the New Choice for Creatives

Universal Music Group took a smart risk with TikTok

I think many of us — at least I hope it’s not just me! — make our best decisions under the oppression of a Hobson’s choice. That’s when we ostensibly have a choice but only one option is at all viable, giving us perfect decision making by default.

For stable master Thomas Hobson that meant telling customers they could either take the horse nearest the stable door or walk on foot, an ingenious policy designed to prevent them cherry-picking his best horses.

You can improve your life substantially by implementing a similar policy for your email inbox — just refuse to reply to anything before noon and people will either choose to hear from you after you’ve had coffee and gotten a few hours of work done, or choose to get stuffed.

And, yes, I know that defending one’s mornings from email assaults is a pretty pathetic thing to talk big about, so let’s vicariously lean on one of history’s greats. Tariq ibn Ziyad, a figure influential enough to be remembered by a singular moniker (although his is the rather uncreative “Tariq”), took a Hobson’s choice to the extreme.

In the spring of 711, as the spearhead of a Muslim invasion, Tariq landed his army in Spain and immediately ordered that his boats be burned on the shore. It was a simple message to his men: “we’re here to stay, it’s conquest or death…