Most consumer research asks some version of the same question: What do you want? What do you like? What's most important to you? Those are reasonable places to start. But they only take you so far. People are remarkably good at telling you what they want. But they're even more revealing when they tell you what they're willing to give up to get it. This is the logic behind choice-based conjoint analysis. The insight comes not only from what people say they prefer, but also from what they're prepared to sacrifice to get what they want. Conjoint is typically deployed in testing product features, setting price points, or optimizing a package. But this kind of thinking may deserve a broader application. The Question We're Not Asking When we study why people buy what they buy, do we ask what they gave up to do it? Money, obviously. But...