Also known as the law of minimal differentiation, this refers to the economic observation that competitors in a market economy tend to offer products that are similar to each other. This is because businesses generally try to offer products that will attract the most customers. A business that offers a peculiar product that appeals only to a tiny section of the population risks losing market share to its competitors who offer more standard products. So most businesses end up offering similar products that appeal to most customers. Hotelling’s law is named after American economist Harold Hotelling who proposed it in his 1929 paper “Stability in competition”.
