<story><title>Uber for Everything</title><url>http://diegobasch.com/uber-for-everything</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>j2d3</author><text>The drill example is a good one. I&amp;#x27;m currently building a pergola. It&amp;#x27;s nearly complete, but I need to cut a few more pieces from 4x4s at a 45 degree angle. Somehow I did a decent job of this already on a few pieces with my handheld circular saw, but it&amp;#x27;s just not the right tool for the job. I screwed up a few times trying last night. What I really need is a chopsaw that will cut @ 45 degrees perfectly well.&lt;p&gt;I could go buy a chopsaw. I will probably keep using it on occasion. But it&amp;#x27;s another $200 or so and - I&amp;#x27;d rather just borrow one from a friend. But I don&amp;#x27;t really know who of my friends has a chopsaw I can borrow, I don&amp;#x27;t want to invest the time to figure that out and then go and get it, and tool rental is ridiculously expensive, and it doesn&amp;#x27;t generally deliver without even more ridiculous expense.&lt;p&gt;I also need a nail gun, and the good ones are all air powered, which means I need a compressor, too. Again, I could go rent this stuff, but I want it delivered, and I don&amp;#x27;t want to pay a price that is pretty close to what it would cost to just buy the tool!&lt;p&gt;I have several power tools I rarely use. If I could sign up for a service that would let me loan my tools out and borrow tools from others that also join the service, and if the tool sharing service delivered and picked up tools from my home and I requested what I want and made known what I have via an app, I&amp;#x27;d sign up right away.&lt;p&gt;I think it could be done with little cost to the end user.&lt;p&gt;So - Uber for everything - yes - and Uber for powertools - give it to me now!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jarrett</author><text>&amp;gt; Again, I could go rent this stuff, but I want it delivered, and I don&amp;#x27;t want to pay a price that is pretty close to what it would cost to just buy the tool!&lt;p&gt;This is probably the biggest problem with a sharing&amp;#x2F;renting economy.&lt;p&gt;Manufacturing has gotten to the point where producing an object is so inexpensive, it&amp;#x27;s cheaper to buy than rent. But why should that be? At any given production cost, why isn&amp;#x27;t it still cheaper to produce fewer and let multiple people use them, either via a renting system or something else? You&amp;#x27;re making fewer objects and still satisfying demand, so why doesn&amp;#x27;t this save money?&lt;p&gt;The reason is the labor and real estate costs of administering such a system. You need people to staff the rental&amp;#x2F;sharing agency. You also need a conveniently-located (and thus expensive) building where people go to pick up and return the objects. Or, if you&amp;#x27;re doing delivery, you can choose a more out-of-the-way location, but now you&amp;#x27;re paying the labor cost of drivers.&lt;p&gt;Because the overhead of running a sharing system is so high, it&amp;#x27;s actually cheaper most of the time to allocate one of each object to each person, except for the most expensive objects.</text></comment>
<story><title>Uber for Everything</title><url>http://diegobasch.com/uber-for-everything</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>j2d3</author><text>The drill example is a good one. I&amp;#x27;m currently building a pergola. It&amp;#x27;s nearly complete, but I need to cut a few more pieces from 4x4s at a 45 degree angle. Somehow I did a decent job of this already on a few pieces with my handheld circular saw, but it&amp;#x27;s just not the right tool for the job. I screwed up a few times trying last night. What I really need is a chopsaw that will cut @ 45 degrees perfectly well.&lt;p&gt;I could go buy a chopsaw. I will probably keep using it on occasion. But it&amp;#x27;s another $200 or so and - I&amp;#x27;d rather just borrow one from a friend. But I don&amp;#x27;t really know who of my friends has a chopsaw I can borrow, I don&amp;#x27;t want to invest the time to figure that out and then go and get it, and tool rental is ridiculously expensive, and it doesn&amp;#x27;t generally deliver without even more ridiculous expense.&lt;p&gt;I also need a nail gun, and the good ones are all air powered, which means I need a compressor, too. Again, I could go rent this stuff, but I want it delivered, and I don&amp;#x27;t want to pay a price that is pretty close to what it would cost to just buy the tool!&lt;p&gt;I have several power tools I rarely use. If I could sign up for a service that would let me loan my tools out and borrow tools from others that also join the service, and if the tool sharing service delivered and picked up tools from my home and I requested what I want and made known what I have via an app, I&amp;#x27;d sign up right away.&lt;p&gt;I think it could be done with little cost to the end user.&lt;p&gt;So - Uber for everything - yes - and Uber for powertools - give it to me now!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sgrove</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;and I don&amp;#x27;t want to pay a price that is pretty close to what it would cost to just buy the tool!&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Why not pay the full price for the tool + delivery (handled by some monthly membership fee, maybe) to keep it as long as you like, and then push a button on your phone and someone shows up from the service to &amp;quot;buy it back&amp;quot; and return it to the cloud. You&amp;#x27;d essentially be paying a deposit to cover the item, and then get the money back when the service got it back.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d liken this more to the original &amp;quot;netflix-for-everything&amp;quot;, with a dash of exec&amp;#x2F;uber-for-everything.</text></comment>