Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous • Hacker News Board

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#231

Post by TuringNYC » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

I'll chime in with anecdata of 1: for our family it is purely about convenience and the lack of space (due to increasing real estate costs.)

Books for us are about space. Growing up, having a full-wall bookshelf was one of my favorite things. It had sentimental value, it was a family gathering place, each ripped page or blemished cover had a story. We now dont have space for a second full-wall bookshelf. We've completely stopped purchasing books and just use Kindle or the library. It works, it just doesnt have the love of a physical books. But we also dont have the space for physical books.

Living in Brooklyn, going from a 2BR to 3BR meant another $500,000 in cost. We now living outside DC, which is less expensive, but still not enough to have room.

So we rent.

Music and movies are for convenience. For me, most music and movie CDs/DVDs never carried as much sentimental value. It is great not having to carry around disks and having temporary access to a much larger library. We subscribe to Apple Music and have never looked back.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#232

Post by metalliqaz » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

fallingfrog wrote: post #187

Everything this guy illustrates in this article as frightening and subversive, I see as positive. Americans confuse control with love; that's why we say things like "you belong to me" and "I only hurt you because I love you". That's why we substitute possessions for relationships. It's a thoroughly poisonous attitude. The most bizarre statement is when he says "The nation was based on the notion that property ownersh…

> "The nation was based on the notion that property ownership gives individuals a stake in the system."

It's technically true. It's clear that the original law of the land assumed that only landowners had a stake in running things.

I didn't get the impression that the author claimed this was a moral truth. Rather, I thought he was saying that the resulting culture made the country prosperous and productive. As more and more groups started owning things, they became enfranchised into the system.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#233

Post by dv_dt » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #167

This is beyond ridiculous. The crux of the article is: > Each of these changes is beneficial, yet I worry that Americans are, slowly but surely, losing their connection to the idea of private ownership. The nation was based on the notion that property ownership gives individuals a stake in the system. It set Americans apart from feudal peasants, taught us how property rights and incentives operate, and was a kind of…

Yup, property ownership is moot to people that have so little they are unable act with any practical level of independence.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#234

Post by tdb7893 » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

_louisr_ wrote: post #223

crazygringo wrote: post #167

This is beyond ridiculous. The crux of the article is: > Each of these changes is beneficial, yet I worry that Americans are, slowly but surely, losing their connection to the idea of private ownership. The nation was based on the notion that property ownership gives individuals a stake in the system. It set Americans apart from feudal peasants, taught us how property rights and incentives operate, and was a kind of…

>If we want to be nervous, let's investigate inequality of net worth And we should find ourselves completely at ease at the end of our investigation, for in every species success is distributed inequitably. Inequality of net worth is a natural law, and human society is no exception. And we need to keep very hard working people motivated to keep working very hard by ensuring them that they will always keep the lions s…

I think this argument would resonate with me if wealth was more meritocratic. My wife is from rural Iowa and I've learned that working hard doesn't guarantee you a living wage (especially if you have medical bills).

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#235

Post by tropdrop » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #49

Oh goody, another article telling me why everything I do as a Millennial is wrong. Here's what we were told as children: "My gosh, you always want more toys, more comics, more videogames. Don't you ever get enough? What's wrong with you!" As teenagers/young adults: "Look at all this crap you've collected over the years, taking up all this room, and you're barely an adult! You'll never have space for all this when you…

Note that the majority of these offending articles come from one source - and that source is Bloomberg. Once I learned to ignore Bloomberg I started to realize relatively few outlets are disparaging of millennials anymore.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#236

Post by _louisr_ » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

fallingfrog wrote: post #187

Everything this guy illustrates in this article as frightening and subversive, I see as positive. Americans confuse control with love; that's why we say things like "you belong to me" and "I only hurt you because I love you". That's why we substitute possessions for relationships. It's a thoroughly poisonous attitude. The most bizarre statement is when he says "The nation was based on the notion that property ownersh…

> It's pretty obvious to me that a deliberate and intentional effort has been made to ensure that only people who own a lot of property have any voice in the system; to flip that relationship around and make it a moral statement is frankly a little scary.

Well, it hasn't been a deliberate and intentional effort to exclude those without property or net worth from the decision making process - People like that, who reside at the bottom of the hierarchies they inhabit, have never in history been looked to for guidance or input on any decision. I'm making an evolutionary biology claim: Folks with no clout can only have a say if it is deliberately & intentionally given to them. It's the opposite of your speculation that it's been taken from them.

And frankly why _should_ someone who cannot gather value for themselves have a say in economic decisions that will affect others? The reason we have these big evil hierarchies, where the poor are dispossessed and a small group of tycoons at the top make the decisions, is because they have a track record of good decisions. If you suddenly took some progressive initiative to invite some idlers to give input on tax law, they might make a decision that inadvertently lowers your country's GDP by half a percent for five years.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#237

Post by s73v3r_ » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

pathseeker wrote: post #199

_bxg1 wrote: post #134

The article identifies some problems but totally misses their actual source. The problem isn't that we own less stuff, it's that the ownership is replaced by a dependency on a handful of corporations which we have no ability to influence or appeal to. The substitution of individual ownership for a communal one in which individuals retain a stake - a real community, or at a larger scale, a democracy - is not inherentl…

>The substitution of individual ownership for a communal one in which individuals retain a stake - a real community, or at a larger scale, a democracy - is not inherently bad. IMO it's still terrible if there is effectively only one product option. A democratic decision is just as bad as a shareholder one if it's choosing to favor a majority group over the minority (2 wolves and 1 sheep voting for dinner choices). >o…

Except that network is only valuable because it has people in it to do the labor.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#238

Post by Spooky23 » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #163

Spooky23 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a perspective that is common these days, but awful in practice. I don’t want to be a tenant, period — it’s almost never a better deal or value for me. I don’t need to pay a premium for the overhead and financing of a “cold food as a service” company while getting a level of service that meets the most minimum standard possible. What we are missing today is meaningful competition. You can’t buy an appliance tha…

The only way you can possibly justify that sort of view point is the implicit hard cap on what you're willing to pay. You can't find "quality" (in appliances, in shoes, in just about anything) because you're not willing to pay for it.

No way. Price is all about market segmentation, there is little or no correlation with quality. The most expensive built-in refrigerators, for example, have very high failure rates.

After going through 3 washing machines in 9 years, i bought a Speed Queen commercial washer without a cashbox. It is not very pretty, and cost $50 more than the mid-range residential washer that it replaced, has a 5 year warranty, and an expected life of 10-15 years.

This is true for most categories of consumer products. Appliances, shoes, pants, furniture, etc.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#239

Post by gnicholas » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 6:19 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #15

Amazon’s Kindle and other methods of online reading have revolutionized how Americans consume text. Fifteen years ago, people typically owned the books and magazines they were reading. Much less so now. The statements about books are not accurate. Ebook sales are still just a fraction of print sales in many genres - NPD data indicates ebooks are less than 20% of total unit sales for nonfiction, children, and young ad…

My reading-related startup is in the middle of conducting a poll on ebook usage.

So far, the data is showing that most people still prefer reading on paper versus on screen, by a decent margin (only 14% prefer screen). However, people still read more ebooks than paper books, likely due to the convenience factor. This can be squared with the NPD data because library ebooks are included in our poll, not just purchased ebooks.

I've been surprised at what small percentage of people use a monochrome Kindle (less than 25%), and the lack of a dominant platform (Amazon — 35%, OverDrive — 19%, Apple — 11%, Nook — 8%, Other — 27%). I guess it's good for consumers that there isn't one big leader here.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#240

Post by amelius » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 6:19 PM UTC

BRAlNlAC wrote: post #202

amelius wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recycling might be the responsibility of the company, but they might systematically find the cheapest way to do it without regard to the full externalities of how it's accomplished. It's a lot easier to hold few companies accountable, than to hold millions of consumers accountable. > And good luck trying to prove to a fridge service provider that their unit has an intermittent thermostat problem... That's also a pr…

Consumers largely dispose of waste through municipal pickup which is already well overlooked. Setting up oversight for industrial disposal by a bazillion corporate entities in this theoretical shareconomy of appliances would be an enormous burden on the already undercapable county and state EPA offices. It would probably all just get shipped out of the country anyway. If you think modern refrigerators are wasteful I'…

It's not just disposal. It's also the choices that are made when building/buying the product. Consumers are easily persuaded to choose based on different qualities than environmental-friendliness. Also, the recycling facilities may be optimized specifically for the type of fridge that a service-provider uses.