Final answer:
The consumer benefit in a monopolistically competitive market is primarily B) product differentiation, which allows consumers to choose from a variety of products tailored to their preferences.
Step-by-step explanation:
In a monopolistically competitive market, the primary benefit to the consumer is product differentiation. Unlike perfect competition, where firms produce identical products and the price equals marginal cost (P = MC), leading to allocative efficiency, monopolistic competition features firms setting prices higher than their marginal costs (P > MC) due to a downward sloping demand curve. The firms follow the profit maximization rule of setting marginal revenue (MR) equal to marginal cost (MC). However, this scenario leads to a loss of potential societal benefits because the value consumers place on additional units of production (P) is higher than what it costs to produce them (MC) but such units are not produced.
Thus, the market does not achieve allocative efficiency, nor does it produce at the minimum average cost or where price equals marginal cost. The main advantage that persists in a monopolistically competitive market for consumers is the variety of products offered by different firms due to product differentiation, allowing for consumer preference satisfaction which could not be realized in a perfectly competitive market with homogenous products.