The New Golden Age of Renting? • Hacker News Board

Re: The New Golden Age of Renting?

#11

Post by stuaxo » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 3:27 PM UTC

cianestro wrote: post #10

Any europeans here on HN? I had a german professor last semester tell me many schools/teachers don't require students to buy specific textbooks and do homework problem sets in Europe. They just expect their students to understand the material, turn in good labs or essays, and pass the tests. He was obviously criticizing that american college students are spoon-fed their education.

Each country is different, the German model sounds good.

Here in the UK, you don't buy textbooks until college/university... at school they are provided by the school; apart from that detail sounds more similar to the american system though.

Re: The New Golden Age of Renting?

#12

Post by yummyfajitas » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 3:32 PM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #5

Zipcar just filed for an IPO to payoff their debt. They've got a lot of it. I also don't see how Chegg deals with some of the things universities/text book publishers have done to handicap the used textbook market - i.e. having a new edition every year, with new required problems in the classes.

Startup opportunity: build a site which correlates the problems in the new edition with the old edition. (I.e., problem 5 in edition 3 = problem 7 in edition 4, turn "4/3" to "9/7".)

Re: The New Golden Age of Renting?

#13

Post by MichaelSalib » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 8:10 PM UTC

looprecur wrote: post #6

Renting in general (cars, housing) is one of those things that people want other people to do, but not for themselves, at least not on things they consider important. For example, if you rent textbooks, you give them up at the end of the semester... but a lot of people want to have them around for years later. An example is that, following the housing crisis, people quipped about how all "those people" who were takin…

They'll gladly rent in their 20s when they're starting out, but they want to own the house they raise their children in.

I'm not sure that's really true. The rental and purchase markets tend to offer different products in most places. So while you can find studio rentals easily, you can't find rentals for a family of 5 nearly as easily.

Also, in the US, we tend to only see short term lease options for residential renting (say 12 months). But as you get older and get children, the cost of moving begins to rise. You've got a lot more stuff and your friends are older and busier and less inclined to blow a day helping schlep your stuff. So I think part of what older married people with children are buying when they buy a house is freedom from having to worry that they'll suddenly have to scramble to find a new place and then actually move.

Re: The New Golden Age of Renting?

#14

Post by benJIman » Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 10:46 PM UTC

cianestro wrote: post #10

Any europeans here on HN? I had a german professor last semester tell me many schools/teachers don't require students to buy specific textbooks and do homework problem sets in Europe. They just expect their students to understand the material, turn in good labs or essays, and pass the tests. He was obviously criticizing that american college students are spoon-fed their education.

Indeed. I live in the UK and had no need to buy a single text book throughout my degree (Computer Science). There were usually a few equivalent suggested books for each module. We were free to purchase or borrow any of them or use other sources such as online material.

I bought half a dozen books because they were interesting beyond the course itself, mostly just used the library and online material though.