I own a lawn mower. I have a sizable yard, so I feel like I need it, but do I really?
There are equipment rental companies nearby. I could choose to go to one every week or so during the Summer and rent a lawn mower.
Better yet, I could hire someone to bring their lawn mower to my house and cut my grass for me. Many of my neighbors do that.
In the housing complex near me, the residents own their condo or townhouse, but the complex owns the grass and landscaping. They hire folks to maintain the lawns and trees for them. I love walking through the complex because it’s so well maintained.
You can see the same choices with cars. I own a car, but I could lease one or just rent one whenever I need it. Or I could hire a service to pick me up every day and take me where I want to go. Or I can just get an Uber of Lyft and not worry about having a car.
You can now get a car subscription service that allows you to change cars whenever you want with a monthly fee. No obligation; you can drive month to month and stop any time.
Tony Seba predicts that given the durability of electric cars, we’ll get too bored with them to keep them their whole useful lives. With the advent of self-driving cars, he predicts that we’ll stop owning cars and just summon them when we need them (at least in cities).
More and more things that we have traditionally owned are moving toward these other models: ebooks, streaming music and movies, cloud storage and online business software, food delivery, public bicycles and scooters, even furniture has been available to rent for years.
When my three kids were newborns, I would have preferred to be able to rent baby equipment. You spend a ton of money and you only need it a short time. As a result, there’s a huge underground market for baby stuff from parents trying to pass it along to the newer parents.
It makes me wonder what I consider really mine. Most of my important stuff is sentimental: pictures, letters, notebooks…
The next ten to fifteen years are going to be interesting to see where it all goes.
