How rental ‘libraries of things’ have become the new way to save money - eviltoast

The theory is simple: instead of buying a household item or a piece of clothing or some equipment you might use once or twice, you take it out and return it.

  • fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    6 months ago

    I agree with the first part, but they are using the terms interchangeable of renting and borrowing. Talking about renting and subscription in the same vain as borrowing.

    I just don’t want the very cool idea of a library economy to be conflated with the “you own nothing” subscription/rent everything economy.

    They both have similarities but the actual ownership matters IMHO or else you get rent seeking/enshittification.

    • realbadat@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      6 months ago

      That’s fair, I’d agree the article does a terrible job of differentiating, and a company calling itself a library in it’s name doesn’t make it a library, just a rental service playing pretend for profit.