I recently noticed a changing behavior in how my family and friends go about buying a new mobile phone. The reason they have a mobile is to receive and make phone calls, but their selection of a model to buy is based mostly on secondary functions like built-in camera.

In itself this isn’t surprising. It’s normal and common that when features become ubiquitous, competition and differentiation moves elsewhere. Basic functionality of phones has certainly been fulfilled and it’s difficult to add a new call-related feature that would be a significant progress.

But what I find utterly fascinating is something else. Even though primary functions play no part in selection of a phone, they are still the main if not the only reason why we have them. In fact, they are what we use most and we wouldn’t buy phones otherwise.

So here’s an interesting dichotomy. Which phone is bought and when has nothing to do with why we have it or little to do with how we use it. We think we’re buying a phone and we’ll use it as a phone most of the time, but it’s features like camera or wifi that actually make a sale.

I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of days and I can’t think of any other product or service, where buyers would display the same behavior, but I have no doubt that this is only due my lack of imagination.