I was thinking about bowling. Thinking about it, thinking about how awesome bowling alleys are, how the environment is quite the uniqueness in our society. Thinking about lanes. Thinking about the carpeting. Thinking about balls. And then I came to it. The screens! Look at them! They’re designed to work, to be understood, and to facilitate you having fun while you’re playing about the most thunderous rolling sport of our times. But by god, I’ve never seen two the same. Where we’re in a world where so many things come standard: pop machines, cars, newspaper dispensers, this program run by thousands of alleys is different in each of them. And the container on each has it’s own charm as well.

This situation reminds me of a cardinal lesson in economics: if two grocery stores have bread, but one has the bread priced 25¢ higher, you’ll still go to the other store because it’s closer by. While there might be a brand-name bowling system out there that would be universally easier to understand, it doesn’t matter because there’s no big demand for that kind of system from the bowlers. One bowler does not go to all sorts of different alleys asking for the same system enough for any alley to switch from the one that was originally most convenient for them.

Thus, this! Hundreds if not thousands of different setups and systems.

Now there might be some bowling systems out there trying to dominate the market, and good luck to them! But bowling is and always has been a sport that’s basically just for the love of it – there is no gigantic market or popular sporting event for it, thus happy mediocrity.

And thus the uniqueness of each alley.

Now behold these screens.

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This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies environment category.