First Click: Team Valor is the best Pokémon team, right?

According to researchers at Adobe Digital Insights, Team Mystic leads the others with a 43 percent share of social mentions since release, with Team Instinct pulling just 25 percent of mentions. Is the crowd as wise as Blanche, or are they just mindlessly picking Mystic because it’s the center option and that’s what we do?

Quentin Fottrell tries to answer that question in a piece titled "On Pokémon Go, why so many people are choosing Team Mystic" published on MarketWatch. Fottrell thinks that team selection has less to do with the backstory, colors, and birds, and more to do with the compromise price effect:

"The "compromise price effect" is used by retailers that want customers to pay extra, but know more customers will pay the middle price."

[…]

"When people are presented with three tip choices — 20%, 25% or 30%, for instance — they’re more likely to choose the middle option even if it’s more than the traditional 20%, according to an analysis of 13 million New York City taxi rides by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and published in the American Economic Journal."

Most people choose the middle option. When presented with the choice of good, better, and best, most find better to be good enough. We choose the middle door, we drive in the middle lane, we subscribe to the middle smartphone plan, and we buy the medium beverage. Likewise, most people choose Team Mystic because it’s the team presented in the middle, at least that's how the argument goes. Does that sound about right to you?