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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1836 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 13, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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This might be SLIGHTLY too big for small-scale Sunday, but I will give it a go:

What is the strongest argument against "you will own nothing and be happy" as a concept?" Ideally an argument that can be expressed in a few sentences of average complexity.

For instance, one argument might be that "people will not be able to build up wealth." However, I note that most of the property people own are depreciating assets. It actually might make sense for someone to not own a car and instead simply rent one on a weekly basis from a fleet of vehicles maintained by a larger company that are mostly standardized and will suit whatever their needs are at the time. Or a system like Citibike for cars. Or maybe later on, just call a robotaxi as needed.

This means they will not have to worry about the costs of repairs and maintenance, or insurance, or storage, and they can expect to get new models on a regular basis, thus it reduces a potential source of stress and unexpected costs to a simple monthly subscription. This seems like it would work well for a lot of people, and save them money in the long run!

And similar can apply to housing! If you live in a rented, pre-furnished apartment you are far more flexible if you want a change of scenery, to expand your living space, or need to move to a new city to pursue opportunities. Home ownership introduces lots of complexity and presents an illiquid asset even if it appreciates.

Same can apply to, say, smartphones, which upgrade so fast that 'owning' one almost doesn't make sense as it becomes outdated in < 1 year.

So extending some logic, I begin to see reasons why the average person might prefer to own nothing but a retirement account, and simply have a subscription service for most items they will use throughout their life.

What philosophical, economic, psychological, social, biological, political etc. etc. argument do you think most strongly refutes or rejects this as an ideal?

Taking a guess at the argument that will be the most common response, Rot-13'd:

Vg qvfpbhentrf snzvyl sbezngvba naq yrnqf gb n pvgvmrael gung vf vapncnoyr bs erfvfgvat nhgubevgl.

(Let us be clear, I'm not supporting owning nothing, but I do plan on trying to do a steelman or similar in the future)

Ownership creates slack in the system, slack in the system is what creates new and great things. You will own nothing is the logical conclusion of ruthlessly-efficient Capitalism, in that nothing will continue to exist that is not currently optimal.

Consider simple examples:

If you collect DVDs and books, you will continue to own obscure titles that you might never have watched, even if you don't watch them for years. If you subscribe to a streaming service, they will be pruning their service according to what makes money. Consider Reds a movie I happen to have the VHS of in an old basket of stuff in my parent's garage. I've never actually watched it, but if I wanted to I could do so tonight. Pending the destruction of the physical media, my kids could watch it five years from now. No streaming service carries it "free" with subscription, to my knowledge. With physical media one might stumble across it, with streaming it is impossible, with rental it can only be sought out specifically. Same with the vast numbers of old books hanging around my house from library book sales, many of them I could have gotten on Kindle Unlimited, but I probably wouldn't seek them out, there's no serendipity. You never read a book online because it's the only book in the beach house you rented and it's raining all weekend.

This extends even to the difference between when I "stole" media by downloading it from SoulSeek, versus when I "steal" media by streaming it on YouTube with Arabic subtitles. When I owned the things I stole, I had them around, and I would often download a pile of things from the same user. Once I found an obscure punk album on a user's files, I would start poking through what other music they had shared and downloading that as well. Some of those files still sit on my big hard drive, obscure punk bands from the early 2000s like Assorted Jelly Beans. I haven't listened to them in years, but if I wanted to, if the song Punk Rock Jock suddenly inspired me, I can do that. If I wanted to find it again, it would depend on the whims of Spotify.

Every day I drive to an outlying property of ours, I pass by a bright pink house. It's a double wide that's been renovated into a ranch house, and the owner painted it various shades of Barbie pink. I love driving by it, it makes me happy to look at it. No landlord would paint it pink, no landlord would have that house at that location. It only exists because of the odd circumstances leading to that particular human living in that particular location. And that brings joy. Somebody might see it and be inspired to do something with their house.

Buying gym equipment versus having a gym membership is the same tradeoff. A gym membership over the past decade would have given me access to more and better equipment every day. But my equipment has lasted. I spent $100 on two kettlebells in 2013. There have been times I didn't touch them for months, but when I get in the mood they are right there, waiting. Same with my squat rack, my heavy bag, my moon board. I might not use them every day, but I can use them when I so choose. When I get inspired, there they are. For a gym membership, unless I pay continuously, it isn't there.

Ownership creates slack in the system, slack in the system is what creates new and great things.

I also believe that allowing people to 'hoard' capital and property individually (i.e. decentralization) is important for ensuring systems are robust and to some extent antifragile.

It only exists because of the odd circumstances leading to that particular human living in that particular location. And that brings joy. Somebody might see it and be inspired to do something with their house.

This is also my argument against strict HOAs and zoning laws. Enforcing high levels of uniformity is good in some ways (making sure homes in a hurricane-prone area are built to a particular standard!), but really bad in others.

I prefer to live in an environment with novel and 'unique' aesthetics, even if this creates a hodgepodge of styles without any uniting theme, because the alternative seems to be everything is designed around the same blueprint and is painted the same shade of beige. But a lot of people seem to be fine with living in the uniform beige suburbs.

Same with my squat rack, my heavy bag, my moon board. I might not use them every day, but I can use them when I so choose. When I get inspired, there they are. For a gym membership, unless I pay continuously, it isn't there.

For me, the tradeoff of a gym membership in exchange for having more space in my living area is generally worth it, and the gym will have a wider variety of equipment that I wouldn't want to store long-term (let alone move) anyway.

Would it be so bad if you have a 'community' gym that was <5 minutes walking distance from your house and had all the equipment you needed, readily available in most cases (i.e. NOT constantly occupied by other users)?

Because there is certainly an efficiency tradeoff. If every household had their own exercise equipment, even assuming they use it several times a week, it is still sitting idle most of the time. Whereas a communal gym area will minimize the overall cost of setting up (because you're paying for less equipment overall) and ensure that the available equipment is in regular use so you're getting more value for the equipment you do have.

I'm seeing how the 'slack vs. efficiency' argument seems to be moving in favor of efficiency these days.

I also believe that allowing people to 'hoard' capital and property individually (i.e. decentralization) is important for ensuring systems are robust and to some extent antifragile.

And fertile! The existence of the dilletante is important in terms of creativity over time. Many great innovations have come from people having the freedom to fuck around.

For me, the tradeoff of having more space in my living area is generally worth it, and the gym will have a wider variety of equipment that I wouldn't want to store long-term (let alone move) anyway.

I live in a place where space is more or less a non-issue for me. This allows me to keep this stuff around.

Would it be so bad if you have a 'community' gym that was <5 minutes walking distance from your house and had all the equipment you needed, readily available in most cases (i.e. NOT constantly occupied by other users)?

This was basically the situation in law school, and in law school I did have a gym membership at the school. The cool feature there that I've never seen replicated at a commercial gym: you could "rent" gym clothes (think a gym uniform from the 80s: tube socks, mesh gym shorts, cotton t shirt) which made it extra convenient because I didn't need to pack clothing when I went to class in the morning.

But, just in my short lifetime, I've seen the equipment in gyms shift radically from machine focused, to free weight focused. When I was a teenager I never would have found a kettlebell in a commercial gym! And even today, unless I join a KB focused gym I'm not going to find one with a 97#er like Erica.

Ultimately I will probably dispose of some things. I don't really boulder outside anymore, I'm probably going to sell my crashpad for a loss. But that means some kid at my old climbing gym is going to get a great deal on a crash pad, and maybe that will help him become a great boulderer. Slack in the system!

Much like how the thrift store has historically been a prime driver of fashion innovation. Kids with more taste and time than money shop at thrift stores, pick up great vintage items cheap, and find ways to remix them to create something new. Slack in the system which wouldn't exist if everyone rented clothing.

Throw in all the stuff about power that everyone else talks about, but this is one reason.

P.S.

I prefer to live in an environment with novel and 'unique' aesthetics, even if this creates a hodgepodge of styles without any uniting theme, because the alternative seems to be everything is designed around the same blueprint and is painted the same shade of beige. But a lot of people seem to be fine with living in the uniform beige suburbs.

A big part of what makes for boring houses is that people don't really "own" it, the bank does, and they have no intention of ever paying off the mortgage and really owning the house, they just intend to sell it on to someone else at some point. As such, they don't decorate their house for their taste, they decorate for their idea of someone else's taste, for resale value. The same thing has made the watch market so recursive: everyone is obsessed with resale value, and as such they must stick to what "everyone" wants. The same thing has made cars more and more silver and less and less interesting, it used to be much more common to drive a car all the way from dealership to junkyard, now people don't want to get a car in a color that will make it harder to sell.

It's the same dynamic. When you're optimizing for general rather than a specific taste, you produce things that no one likes quite as much.

So I'm trying to distill the argument this supports down to a few sentences.

"Slack in the system" and "freedom to be expressive/innovative" is the basic idea, but what is the actual reason why systems without individual ownership wouldn't permit such innovation and would remove slack, which could be catastrophic?

Is it just a centralization vs. decentralization argument, or is there something a tad more nuanced here, where people who aren't able to own things will never act as if they own things, stifling their own creativity and preferences in the process?

This is probably the philosophical quandary I'm facing.

Probably if I had to summarize it in a sentence it would be this: Creativity comes from Freedom, and Freedom is the freedom to be stupid. Arguing merely that a rental economy is optimal in each individual case is not enough, because on a meta level we need variety, which can only be created by making sub-optimal decisions.

RE: HOAs and architectural standards for example. I would not want to live in most developments or towns with strict architectural uniformity, but I often enjoy visiting towns in New England that do have those kinds of standards. So I don't just want all freedom or all uniformity, I want varieties of different ways of running a town.

For me it all comes back to what kind of cash flow you need. Depreciation notwithstanding, if I lose my job I’d much rather have a car that’s losing value on paper than have a monthly payment I need to make.

That's just a way of saying you'd rather have savings than not. It doesn't tell you anything about the merits of owning versus renting a car.

It’s related but not quite the same. If my savings are in the market for instance and I’m let go because of a recession, suddenly my obligatory expenses could mean I have to sell at the worst possible time.

I’m not saying renting is never a good idea but racking up fixed expenses poses risks.

Why would selling your car be any better? Its value will be equally affected by the recession.

Yeah, but you don't have to sell your car. Savings and a fixed expense means you're vulnerable on both sides. Your cost of driving can go up, and your savings lose value at once. Owning a paid off car is locked in on cost of ownership. Sure, it can break down, but market fluctuations are irrelevant to you.

Seems like you're talking about owning property as a 'hedge' against economic downturns to the extent that, say, physical assets have intrinsic value to you whilst money held as equities can 'disappear' in a market crash.

And there's probably some logic there.

Yeah that’s a good way to put it. Ownership is a hedge.

This could be presented as a solid argument. Renting also means the real owner can take back their property under certain conditions, leaving you with nothing even if you technically still have the money to cover it.

So you would want to own the basic equipment that allows you to be economically productive so changing economic conditions won't immediately kneecap you.

Right, exactly. I watched a talk from Elizabeth Warren when she was a professor about this years ago. She encouraged people to splurge on things like restaurants and vacations rather than cars and houses because if things go south you can easily just not go out to eat versus having to unwind an expensive car or house payment.

Similar logic applies here I think.

Also it seems like in most cases the lifetime spend for renting dwarfs the cost of ownership.

There's a cohort that largely already owns nothing, they don't seem very happy. Must everyone own nothing for them to be happy?

Renting / leasing may be more cost efficient if your the sort that updates on a regular cycle. New phone every year, new car every 1 - 3 years, etc. If you're the sort to buy a good 10 year old used car and drive it until it dies or is un-economical to repair in 12+ years, you've already optimized this as much as possible. Unless you only have a car and don't need a car, people living in cities who rarely drive etc.

There's a cohort that largely already owns nothing, they don't seem very happy.

I'd suggest that's downstream of them being poor, not necessarily their lack of ownership rights (which is, in this case, ALSO downstream of being poor).

If you're the sort to buy a good 10 year old used car and drive it until it dies or is un-economical to repair in 12+ years, you've already optimized this as much as possible. Unless you only have a car and don't need a car, people living in cities who rarely drive etc.

Or you live in a time where tech advances quite rapidly and so a ten year old car is qualitatively different and arguably inferior to the new versions, so you're missing some tangible benefits from not being up to date.

Kind rolls into the software as a service thing too. If you buy a piece of software outright but don't pay for patches and updates, eventually it might stop working, have security vulnerabilities, or otherwise become less useful as it is outdated. vs. subscribing to a piece of software, guaranteeing ongoing development and updates in response to security threats or new tech.

If you find it worthwhile to subscribe to a piece of software to keep it up to date and functional, why not do the same for hardware? The computer you're running the software on, for instance. Or, how big of a leap is it to subscribing to a service that does this for vehicles? They get you an upgrade whenever there's an improvement in safety tech or fuel efficiency, for example.

What situations does it make absolute economic sense to hold onto an older piece of tech, even if it is 'obsolete' or 'outdated,' for the sake of owning it outright?

Or you live in a time where tech advances quite rapidly and so a ten year old car is qualitatively different and arguably inferior to the new versions

Do we live in this time now?

I've not seen any recent technology advances in cars that I'm willing to pay a premium for.

software as a service thing

This is the model software companies use now. This hasn't always been so. There are still many use cases (mostly offline specialized stuff) that is seldom updated. It was feature complete when it shipped.

Software publishers like SaaS as it improves their revenue. I preferred the previous business model.

I've not seen any recent technology advances in cars that I'm willing to pay a premium for.

Me neither, but occasionally I drive a modern car as a rental and there's a lot of safety and convenience features that have arisen in just the past, call it 8 years alone.

This hasn't always been so. There are still many use cases (mostly offline specialized stuff) that is seldom updated. It was feature complete when it shipped.

But this model seems dominant now, and consumers generally don't seem to be en masse demanding one-time purchases (although for video games this is still a thing).

And from the standpoint of "everything is internet connected and thus a possible security risk" I can see the basic logic of paying to keep vulnerabilities patched, at least!

consumers generally

These are the same people that were renting their landline phones from the phone company, are renting their cable modems / firewalls from their ISP and own a timeshare.

Maybe everything doesn't need to be connected to the internet?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=UrEUzKTt7j0

Succinctly, it's that people who don't want you to own things want power over you. Vehicles, guns, food, wealth, houses are sources of power and sovereignty. If you own nothing, just have a few lines in some bank's excel spreadsheet, then you're much more vulnerable than someone who owns things. Your bank could freeze your assets for being politically unacceptable. What are you going to do - hire a lawyer? With what money ;)

Or just look at the wikipedia page, it talks about how Auken proposed giving up control of electrical appliances to reduce power consumption. So at peak use times, perhaps it would reduce your aircon usage. That makes economic sense but it transfers power from the individual to the company or state. Each tiny loss of power and control matters, convenience comes with a price. We can't - and shouldn't - all be autarchic farmer-warrior kings of our own domain, the Somalia experience. Neither should we be totally docile serfs, hoping that our lords and masters see fit to treat us well. There needs to be a balance and I personally think we're already too close to the latter, better to arrest this trend than accelerate it.

I'll add to the rot13 and say that people who want you unable to resist authority, who want more power from you, are probably untrustworthy. They're at least suspicious. 'Relax, you don't need to bring your pepper spray or the phone in your purse - I'm a professional boxer' is all well and good, how do you know the boxer is not the threat?

Your bank could freeze your assets for being politically unacceptable.

As the wrong sort of protesters learned in Canada.

This ultimately seems like a generalized argument against centralized authority, however.

There's a version I can conceive of with enough competition between various entities that it is less likely that a person gets frozen out of everything at once due to violating the policy of one of them. And likewise the competition prevents any one company from engaging in full monopoly pricing to suck all the consumer surplus out of the system.

There needs to be a balance and I personally think we're already too close to the latter, better to arrest this trend than accelerate it.

What would you say the optimal balance looks like, and is that sustainable as an equilibrium? Or barring that, what metrics would you examine to determine where the balance lies, and why are those metrics important?

I ask because it can be a bit hard to measure "individual sovereignty" on a scale or "convenience" as an objective phenomenon. How much 'inconvenience' should we accept to avoid giving away too much autonomy?

What would you say the optimal balance looks like

Core capabilities are decentralized and privately owned, preferably by many people as opposed to few. Economic transactions via crypto for instance, private ownership of weapons, private ownership of land, private ownership of websites and communications.

Metrics - self-employed as % of the population, wealth equality, number of people arrested for social media posts per year, size of government as % of GDP

I want a more strictly defined role for the state and large companies. Police should be focused on real crimes as opposed to speech, the organs of government should be less ideological. Of course government is innately political but you should not be able to get ahead of the queue in the NHS because you're pro-Palestinian. The US Air Force should not have a written desire to reduce the percentage of white male pilots to X%, even if they say 'oh this is still totally meritocratic and just an aspiration' as a disclaimer at the bottom of the page. Institutions and companies should be purely focused on their formal goals, not social engineering. If people think 'oh this cause is worthy' they should donate their own money, not company funds. Spending other people's money on other people is the worst kind of spending, it should be minimized where possible.

Governments should accept limitations in their powers, not grasping at extraordinary interpretations of the constitution or law to retroactively justify doing things they have no head of power for (this happens all the time in Australia).

In some areas I want stronger government powers, to speed through industrial projects to completion, produce housing and crack down on crime. But I want them wielded by people with a different understanding of what their role is and what they're aiming for.

Clearly this is a difficult equilibrium to maintain. Governments and big corporations all want more power and control, that's a natural desire. Ideologues want more power so they can achieve their goals. The population at large has a tendency to be distracted by prosperity or the media.

What is the strongest argument against "you will own nothing and be happy" as a concept?" Ideally an argument that can be expressed in a few sentences of average complexity.

I love owning stuff and being self sufficient. I can play starcraft I and diablo 2 the way I like and as long as I want. I can play starcraft II and diablo 4 the way blizzard wants me to for as long as they allow me to. All for the same price.

If you live in a rented, pre-furnished apartment you are far more flexible if you want a change of scenery, to expand your living space, or need to move to a new city to pursue opportunities. Home ownership introduces lots of complexity and presents an illiquid asset even if it appreciates.

Here is the kicker. You can do the same with owning home. The rent of the place you own covers the rent of the place you want to live (roughly).

Same can apply to, say, smartphones, which upgrade so fast that 'owning' one almost doesn't make sense as it becomes outdated in < 1 year.

We are not in 2012 anymore. You can reasonably expect to extract 4-5 years of life from a top shelf phone and to use it for something for at least a decade. The iphone yearly refresh is just a welfare program to ensure that older men can get regular blowjobs from younger women.

But the whole this is that when you rent something you are free to do with it what the real owner allows you. So you are dependent. Every dependency is vulnerability and the less there are in your life the better you are.

It actually might make sense for someone to not own a car and instead simply rent one on a weekly basis from a fleet of vehicles maintained by a larger company that are mostly standardized and will suit whatever their needs are at the time. Or a system like Citibike for cars. Or maybe later on, just call a robotaxi as needed.

An immediate example of an answer (beyond the others given) that comes to my mind comes from a recent discussion about the need to own movies and video games on physical media. "Why bother taking up shelf space with DVDs of the original Indiana Jones Trilogy, when I can watch them anytime on my Disney+ streaming service?" Well, how about when said streaming service suddenly takes them down? Same with "games as a service."

"Services" can be taken away with far less difficulty than possessions. It's a lot easier for your "Citibike for cars" or robotaxi to say that they won't rent you a car because (thanks to your tweet on x.com last night) your social credit score just dropped too low, than it is for someone to come tow away the car you own.

Or what if the computers go down at your "Citibike for cars," and suddenly they can't rent anything out? Sure, there may be competitors, but they're now all suddenly swamped by all those customers. Centralization makes failures so much bigger — see supply chains under COVID.

In short, in increases your dependency on others, and on large centralized systems, and thus your vulnerability. Ownership grants resilience.

"Services" can be taken away with far less difficulty than possessions. It's a lot easier for your "Citibike for cars" or robotaxi to say that they won't rent you a car because (thanks to your tweet on x.com last night) your social credit score just dropped too low, than it is for someone to come tow away the car you own.

At the same time, the fact that people happily use Netflix instead of buying DVDs gets towards the idea that... the average person would be completely happy with this arrangement! There are probably more movies out there than any one person can watch. More being made every month. Its not clear why it would be vital to guarantee that you have access to EVERY SPECIFIC FILM you like at all times.

And I'm old enough to remember when it WAS economical to rent DVDs from Blockbuster (and Netflix! They used to do that!) because most movies you would only watch once or twice. Why store them permanently unless you want to watch them many times?

So I can imagine if people were offered a subscription where they could pick one from a dozen different cars every week to drive for just that week, then just return it at the end of the week and get a new selection next week, they might find it appealing.

Centralization makes failures so much bigger — see supply chains under COVID.

Decentralization seems important and is a good argument against renting everything, honestly. But I'm not convinced it is a knockdown argument as long as we assume there IS competition.

Ownership grants resilience.

Assuming you can handle all the risks/responsibilities that come with it.

I think for a lot of people, they can't. If they're negligent on repairing and maintaining their vehicle and aren't very responsible drivers, renting vehicles from a central depot where professionals will make sure they're in decent condition prevents foreseeable issues later. Kinda how it works with vehicle 'fleets.' The employees who drive them aren't the ones doing maintenance and repair, they're just expected to drive them responsibly.

And robotaxis, if they live up to the hype, avoid the risk of having a random breakdown because you let the "check engine" light stay on too long.

As a rentcel, I'm extremely disincentivized from improving anything about the unit I live in because I don't want to put money and effort into improving someone else's asset. For example, my wife would like to put some wallpaper up. But I've put up wallpaper up a few times in my life and it's kind of a pain in the ass. If I were going to enjoy the wallpaper for thirty years or more, that's one thing. If I'm going to enjoy it for a few years before we (inshallah) buy a house, and then we'll need to tear the wallpaper down, it's just not worth it to me. Same for minor maintenance issues around the house that the landlord doesn't give a shit about. I'd much rather have a place that I can do what I want with.

I used to rent and that organisation had a maintainance budget for every unit that was financed through the rent payments. This could then be used for redecorating, like new wallpapers, and/or repairs.

I thought the system was pretty decent and if not for how the housing market extremely strongly incentivises home ownership I might have stayed in such a housing arrangement.

As a rentcel, I'm extremely disincentivized from improving anything about the unit I live in because I don't want to put money and effort into improving someone else's asset.

I like this argument, although I prefer the inverse "I may be more neglectful and cause more damage because it doesn't belong to me." There's a reason its generally not advisable to buy a used car that was previously a lease or a rental.

But I begin to think that the average person isn't really going to do much with a place they own that would 'justify' having them own it themselves.

And why not just have them subscribe to a service that will do the interior decorating for them? Similar to those companies that do house staging for real estate sales, you could pay for subscription that lets you swap out your decor every 6 months.

Likewise, many people who own their homes nonetheless pay someone else to mow their lawn, and they rent e.g. their modem and router from Comcast, since its really a hassle to maintain your own hardware.

Seems like its not so far removed to just rent... everything in your home and then you can also outsource annoying maintenance and repairs.

Yes I am hardcore doing Devil's advocate here.

I like this argument, although I prefer the inverse "I may be more neglectful and cause more damage because it doesn't belong to me." There's a reason its generally not advisable to buy a used car that was previously a lease or a rental.

FWIW, the big car rental companies (Hertz etc.) get premium prices on the second hand market because they maintain their cars better than private owners. (Most ex-lease cars are sold "approved used" through franchised dealers so they command premium prices for a different reason)

I like this argument, although I prefer the inverse "I may be ncentivized to be neglectful and cause more damage because it doesn't belong to me."

The landlord holds thousands of my dollars to incentivize me not to cause damage to the unit.

But I begin to think that the average person isn't really going to do much with a place they own that would 'justify' having them own it themselves.

I think painting walls is in the Overton window of things people do to their own houses (edit: or redoing the kitchen/bathroom), but I'd never bother doing this to a rental. It's the ultimate and final cuck. Think about it logically.

And why not just have them subscribe to a service that will do the interior decorating for them? Similar to those companies that do house staging for real estate sales, you could pay for subscription that lets you swap out your decor every 6 months.

So they'll put up wallpaper, I'll pay them a monthly fee for years for nothing (I don't want my wallpaper changed every six months, and I don't want a bunch of strangers in the house every six months either), then they take it down when I leave? Maybe if it was like $10 a year or something but otherwise it's hard for me to see how this is +EV. I could just pay someone to put up the wallpaper and tear it down, and that would probably be more cost effective.

Likewise, many people who own their homes nonetheless pay someone else to mow their lawn

Yeah, but that's a task that needs to be done all the time. People have had maids and butlers for as long as they've had houses, this doesn't really seem to be the same type of thing as paying for a furniture subscription service.

and they rent e.g. their modem and router from Comcast, since its really a hassle to maintain your own hardware.

This is totally bizarre to me and I don't really know why people do it. I've literally never had a problem with a router/modem I bought from Amazon. This is probably the best example of what you are talking about, though. I don't know how many people opt to rent rather than just buy.

Seems like its not so far removed to just rent... everything in your home and then you can also outsource annoying maintenance and repairs.

You already can (in some jurisdictions and some cases, must) outsource repairs. Water leak? Call the plumber. Electric problem? Call the electrician. Floors dirty? Call the carpet cleaners. Etc. what is the benefit of renting my carpets?

This is totally bizarre to me and I don't really know why people do it. I've literally never had a problem with a router/modem I bought from Amazon. This is probably the best example of what you are talking about, though. I don't know how many people opt to rent rather than just buy.

Same here, although aging equipment sometimes takes some work to make compatible, or simply won't work and force an upgrade.

ONE reason I can understand people renting Comcast Equipment is that they'll upgrade it for you periodically and you pretty much don't have to fiddle with it to get it to work.

For me, though, owning the equipment gives me reassurance that I actually CONTROL my home network, in that no other parties can shut down or interfere with my personal equipment. At least, not without some effort.

So they'll put up wallpaper, I'll pay them a monthly fee for years for nothing (I don't want my wallpaper changed every six months,

Nah, I'm suggesting you COULD do that. But there could just as easily be a service that does it for a flat fee anytime you want to update, and perhaps there's also a guarantee to replace anything that breaks as part of the deal.

The point here is, what's the benefit to you from owning your furniture and decor? Why would you argue against someone renting it to you instead? Is it really just about having the 'option' to do what you want and decorate however you like?

Water leak? Call the plumber. Electric problem? Call the electrician. Floors dirty? Call the carpet cleaners. Etc. what is the benefit of renting my carpets?

In theory, it reduces complexity a lot. Now the expense to you is collapsed down to a monthly or annual fee which represents the entire expense of using the carpet. And if you want to replace the carpet, you can call up a replacement from the same company. Maybe they even have an app.

Apparently you can rent fucking clothes these days, so I'm trying to hear the strongest arguments against doing such a thing, if we assume the service that allows you to do so exists.

Nah, I'm suggesting you COULD do that. But there could just as easily be a service that does it for a flat fee anytime you want to update, and perhaps there's also a guarantee to replace anything that breaks as part of the deal.

The point here is, what's the benefit to you from owning your furniture and decor? Why would you argue against someone renting it to you instead? Is it really just about having the 'option' to do what you want and decorate however you like?

Change my furniture any time I want for a flat fee and with a warranty? we already have this, it's called having someone deliver/haul away your furniture and buying a manufacturer's warranty, no renting necessary. People don't usually do this because it isn't really worth it to them. Extended warranties in particular have a real bad reputation afaict.

To put it simply, it's difficult to imagine that a company providing this service can make money while the customers are not losing money over the alternative setup.

Maybe there really are people who change their decor every month, and for those people, yeah this might make sense. But for everyone else, the transactions costs are just too great for this to pencil out I think.

In theory, it reduces complexity a lot. Now the expense to you is collapsed down to a monthly or annual fee which represents the entire expense of using the carpet. And if you want to replace the carpet, you can call up a replacement from the same company. Maybe they even have an app.

Again, how does this pencil out? You basically are marketing a kind of insurance scheme or extended warranty scheme for my carpet, plus I guess the option to swap it out.

We all know that self insurance is the best insurance. Especially when we're talking about something like carpet where there's no catastrophic risk to consider (unlike a car where if I hit someone I can be liable for millions in medical costs), I just don't see a path to profitability for the firm renting out carpets without a price increase for the consumer over the status quo.

Is the option to swap out your carpet important enough for people to make this financially viable? I doubt it, because replacing carpets is pretty expensive and the firm would need to amortize the cost of the guy who swaps his carpet out every week across the entire customer base, even if the median customer changes carpets once a year.

Apparently you can rent fucking clothes these days, so I'm trying to hear the strongest arguments against doing such a thing, if we assume the service that allows you to do so exists.

How is this different from renting a tuxedo for prom, or renting some equipment from the hardware store? There's clearly a place for services that rent you something that you're only going to use once, and clothing for special events seems to be the target market for this list of services.

Change my furniture any time I want for a flat fee and with a warranty? we already have this, it's called having someone deliver/haul away your furniture and buying a manufacturer's warranty, no renting necessary. People don't usually do this because it isn't really worth it to them. Extended warranties in particular have a real bad reputation afaict.

Right.

So the model I'm proposing avoids you needing to pay for the hauling away part, or the repair or the warranty. It would all be folded into the subscription/rental fees, so you only have to worry about paying your monthly cost.

Its a close-to-identical outcome, but you are not the 'owner' of your furniture and decor.

If the cost ends up being somewhat less, then what argument remains for choosing ownership?

I doubt it, because replacing carpets is pretty expensive and the firm would need to amortize the cost of the guy who swaps his carpet out every week across the entire customer base, even if the median customer changes carpets once a year.

Or offer the "swap it out every week" guy some other kind of deal. I think we're hitting a point where companies have extremely creative business models and can use tons of data to identify how to best provide for each customer's personal use habits.

There's clearly a place for services that rent you something that you're only going to use once, and clothing for special events seems to be the target market for this list of services.

Yes.

And if there's a market for renting things you'll only use once. Why not a market for things you'll only use twice? Or 12 times?

People who try to keep up with fashion trends or who prefer to wear new clothing on the regular could probably save TONS of closet space (or trips to the thrift store) by having a service that will rent them clothes on some kind of set time frame.

If the cost ends up being somewhat less, then what argument remains for choosing ownership?

If you're proposing that someone offers a couch subscription service that costs less over the lifetime of the couch than the value of the couch itself, we're talking about some kind of economic paradox. But yeah, if someone's cutting their own throat and offering me a couch rental for less than the value of the couch, I'd probably take them up on it so long as I don't need to care about the damage I'll inevitably do to the couch.

People who try to keep up with fashion trends or who prefer to wear new clothing on the regular could probably save TONS of closet space (or trips to the thrift store) by having a service that will rent them clothes on some kind of set time frame.

Probably, but that's kind of a niche demographic. We're pretty far from the average consumer at this point.

If you're proposing that someone offers a couch subscription service that costs less over the lifetime of the couch than the value of the couch itself, we're talking about some kind of economic paradox.

Well, these companies do in fact exist, explain that to them.

Seems like I would have the option to buy a sofa for about $1000 new or pay $43/month for a year lease, after which point it looks like they sell it used for like $400 used. If I planned on moving after a year, then paying $500 for the sofa rental for the year would cost less than buying the $1000 sofa then selling it for $400 when I move (unless I really thought I could get more for it), as that would cost me $600.00.

I think I can imagine a scenario where I'm not planning on living in a given place for greater than a year, and rather than buy furniture, use it, then try to sell it on facebook marketplace OR pack it up and move it to my new place, I just rent the stuff I want and they arrange for pickup when it is time to move.

And incidentally, if we're living in this "own nothing and be happy" world, it should be pretty easy to pick up and move because you don't need to drag your belongings with you. Better job offer in another town? Drop everything, move into a new rental, rent new furniture, get a new vehicle subscription (don't even need to worry about updating registration!) and move along almost seamlessly. If you want to move to a new town every year, its much easier if you don't have to worry about the cost of moving or liquidating all your existing furniture, to say nothing of the house.

For a type of person who just follows the highest salary or moves about on a whim, surely this is the best arrangement?

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This is probably the best example of what you are talking about, though. I don't know how many people opt to rent rather than just buy.

That point in particular feels is a great pivot point to nudge people towards ownership. Show them how many months it'd take the modem to “pay for itself”, a screenshot of the ISP naming that specific model as compatible with their plan, and they'll usually get right on board.

This is directionally supporting, not opposing, but

For instance, one argument might be that "people will not be able to build up wealth"

I don't think anything in this vision prevents you from buying index funds, which will build wealth faster than alternatives. Real estate has appreciated over the recent past, but YIMBYs would argue it's just because local governments restrict good land use and properties in desirable locations are effectively taxi medallions.

"But stocks are just an abstraction that depends on the global economy!" Yeah, so is your property, you own it because the legal system and culture think you do and your use of it depends on your remote developer job.

Real estate has appreciated over the recent past, but YIMBYs would argue it's just because local governments restrict good land use

I don't think so. Upzoning increases land value, because you can build more valuable structures on land zoned for higher density. The main reason housing has appreciated is a combination of high-skilled workers centralizing in a relative handful of cities, and falling interest rates driving up asset prices. When your asset purchases are highly leveraged (e.g. ten to one on a mortgage with 10% down), this can be extremely lucrative.

I don't think anything in this vision prevents you from buying index funds, which will build wealth faster than alternatives.

Stocks allow your accumulated wealth to grow and hopefully to outpace inflation. But you need spare cash to accumulate in the first place.

When someone else is siphoning a bit of the “surplus” of each use of the countless pieces of capital I've accumulated, that opens up much more opportunity for companies to squeeze me to my absolute limit. What is the most you will bear to rent utensils this afternoon? (It's deeply colonialist of you to assume eating with your fingers is “unsanitary”, anyway, so it's a public good to discourage their use.)

Philosophy ain't my strong suit, so I'll just say I don't wanna deal with a a kitchen-implement subscription service every time I feel like frying an egg.

In the Cyberpunk anime they show how shitty and exploitative the future is by a teenager trying to dry his clothes, but the dryer subscription service runs out so the dryer in his mom's apartment refuses to work. I'd better never have an always-online dryer or fridge looking for reasons to lock up because I haven't paid a service fee or installation updates.

I agree, but you do need to make a recurring payment to the grocery store for the egg itself, and another recurring payment for the electricity, which I'm not sure is philosophically different in kind.

Eggs aren't vendor-locked; I can cook them in any brand pan I want; on an electric stove, a propane stove, or over a campfire made of logs I chopped myself using my choice of axe vendor. And you could even own a chicken, if you don't rent.

A house I own outright is much less likely to demand that I use cloud-connected appliances than one I rent. Connecting “my” (landlord's) water heater to the internet and installing a damn app that requires an online account with an extensive privacy policy is the only way to extract diagnostic codes to figure out why it keeps beeping (near my bed and loud enough to cause hearing damage over long term exposure, though I don't have the audio equipment to prove this) and shutting off the hot water.

Connecting “my” (landlord's) water heater to the internet and installing a damn app that requires an online account with an extensive privacy policy is the only way to extract diagnostic codes to figure out why it keeps beeping (near my bed and loud enough to cause hearing damage

Tangent, but this can be solved by saying "That's not working, the App is not connecting, it's still beeping, send a plumber" over and over again, until the problem goes away. Renting is the reason I'm absolutely not looking at diagnotistic codes, ever.

I mean, what if the subscription service was simply you pay $20/month (or whatever) and have access to whatever implements you desire, and can add to or return implements as needed or if they get broken, AND if you ever move out, you can just leave it all there instead of packing, as your subscription will carry over to your new place.

I don't imagine that there will be some central communal store of knives and whisks and bowls that gets delivered on demand in this scenario, just that you aren't so attached to your implements that you feel like they're 'yours', rather than you just possessing them for a period of time. No need to cart them around.

on top of the actual “mathematical” cost of the equipment per se, I'll have to bear:

  • the extra repair & replacement costs from wear-and-tear by the 90% of the population who treats their kitchenware worse than I do
  • the increase on the prior item due to the Principal-Agent problem as the other renters treat their non-owned kitchenware even worse than they would treat their own kitchenware
  • the decrease in Quality due to good-faith mitigations of the previous costs (e.g. spatulas with rounded non-scraping points, pans that can be safely maintained by someone stupid and unconscientious — not cast iron)
  • the decrease in Quality due to pure amoral Principal-Agent problem (e.g. spatulas made as cheaply as possible while fulfilling the terms of the contract, bowls that optimize for cost rather than usability)
  • the middleman's operating expenses
  • the middleman's profits

that's a hell of a lot on one side of the scale that needs to be balanced out before this actually becomes a good proposition for the consumer.

The increase on the prior item due to the Principal-Agent problem

Principal-Agent problems seems like the most basic argument against "everything is rented" as an economic model. You can't be sure that someone else will treat 'your' stuff as responsibly as you will.

That said, Uber, Airbnb, Doordash, etc. have what seem to be workable solutions to this issue, even if there are those who try to circumvent it. Those systems work well enough in most cases.

the decrease in Quality due to good-faith mitigations of the previous costs

Being honest, do we think that the average person is a good judge of quality? Do they care? or Are they buying the cheapest chinese knockoff they can find from Amazon in most cases?

I'm not convinced anyone who isn't a serious chef is going to pay attention to this, as long as anything that breaks gets replaced immediately.

the middleman's operating expenses the middleman's profits

Surely this also applies to buying your own kitchen implements at retail?

that's a hell of a lot on one side of the scale that needs to be balanced out before this actually becomes a good proposition for the consumer.

Hmmm. Let us assume that twice a year you put together a large feast for a big group of people (maybe its for the holidays, I dunno). You need more pots and pans, an air fryer, an instant pot, and a few other specialized tools that you WILL NOT use the rest of the year. They'll just take up counter or cabinet space waiting for the next big event.

How does the cost of buying specialized implements that you only use 1-2 times a year match up to paying to have those same implement delivered when you need them, then once you're done sending it back so another person can use it? A large air fryer, for example, costs $150-200 new. If, for example, it cost $30 to rent for the day, or was part of the deal of some larger subscription service you paid for, then it'd take 3ish years before your purchase paid itself off. And meanwhile its just sitting there taking up space for the 363 other days you're not using it.

Much of this really does seem to come down to how much you intend to use the more specialized, expensive implements.

Mostly for the same reason people don't want to eat bugs and stop flying: someone will still be eating steak, flying around in personal jets and that someone will also lease you the flat, the car and the phone. And because they own property and you don't, no one will ever be able to challenge their dominance, while property owners will be able to modify the terms of the social contract at will for ESG reasons or whatever new acronym is in vogue.

Yes, I've read Austrian-adjacent complaints that fiat money is functionally the same attack on liberty and that we should wake up and wrestle control over our money away from the governments.

someone will still be eating steak, flying around in personal jets and that someone will also lease you the flat, the car and the phone.

Most likely this will be a publicly-traded corporation, which means you can 'own' shares in the company (via your 401(k) or whatever) and thus the wealth won't inherently all accrue solely to the executives and such. Indeed, maybe everyone at this point only rents their property, but some people can afford to rent nicer property than others. Like there are 'tiers' of subscription models, and some people are in the diamond tier, but just as a rich person can't buy a better smartphone than whatever model is then-considered top of the line, they're not getting extraordinarily better service than you, just the best the economy has on offer, on demand.

Why would an extremely wealthy person want the hassle of owning a supercar or private jet, when they could, again, just rent one on the spot in any city they happen to be in?

What benefit does the private ownership actually convey to them in this scenario?

This sounds like an argument from either egalitarianism, or from human liberty, not sure which one you're couching it as.

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