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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1774 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 13, 2024

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"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.

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