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

bloomberg.com

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

#281

Post by hardtke »

ryandrake wrote: post #241

I’m surprised at the criticism here and I think the critics are missing the author’s point. He’s not saying, “buy more stuff you don’t need” or even, “possess more stuff.” He’s saying, “you ought to own the stuff you possess.” Which I didn’t think was a controversial opinion but I guess I stand corrected. I might be an outlier. I make a deliberate effort to own instead of rent. My commute is enormous because I moved…

Owning stuff is essential at times of peak demand. It is essentially impossible to rent a nice ski house during Christmas week. Uber is not be trusted when it comes to getting home from a large event. The app was failing for me on Saturday at the Outside Lands festival -- i resorted to driving on Sunday.

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

#282

Post by emodendroket »

imgabe wrote: post #28

Well, it's trivial to strip the DRM from Kindle books and and back them up.

So what? How many people know that, and of the people who do, how many bother to do it? Even among those who do, the legality of what they're doing is unclear. I don't see how it changes anything the article says.

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

#283

Post by lovich »

macleginn wrote: post #265
lovich wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the local can company had an option for me to call one of their cans and i could track it to my door, I probably never would have used Uber. There's some value in being an app you can use in any city, but the number of people who are jet setting around the world _and_ need a cab is probably quite low

Based on my travel experience and given that taxis are rather cheap in many countries, I’d say that most of the people jet setting around the world are very likely to use a universal cab-hailing app at some point.

My point, which I did not make clear, is that there aren't very many people traveling all over the world to begin with. Most people on the planet do not routinely visit other cities outside their home area and could easily be served by a single local company rather than needing a company with a network that spans the globe

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

#284

Post by taurath »

ryandrake wrote: post #241

I’m surprised at the criticism here and I think the critics are missing the author’s point. He’s not saying, “buy more stuff you don’t need” or even, “possess more stuff.” He’s saying, “you ought to own the stuff you possess.” Which I didn’t think was a controversial opinion but I guess I stand corrected. I might be an outlier. I make a deliberate effort to own instead of rent. My commute is enormous because I moved…

> I make a deliberate effort to own instead of rent.

In GENERAL, it seems like it takes a lot more money and resources nowadays to do this, relative to other benefits you can have. In Media, having a wall of $19.99 blue-rays and an apple music full of albums is going to cost you a lot more given how must people consume media (a lot, and constantly). The cost to get that permanence is like an order of magnitude over more or less the same content with subscription services + rentals.

I tend to think of it like this - if netflix takes a show off that I watch constantly, I might buy the series online. If Netflix as a whole goes down along with all the other streaming services, then the whole internet and society is probably down, and I suddenly don't care about all the media I'd be consuming, because there's bigger stuff happening in the world.

Of course, "disconnecting" is probably undervalued - I'm just old enough to remember the time when offline was the default for media. Not having to deal with the engagement machine and autoplay was a bit of a blessing.

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

#285

Post by bunderbunder »

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

That notion presumably had something to do with why, in a nation with a population of well over 5 million, fewer than 40,000 people participated in the first US Presidential election.

Everyone who lives in the country has a stake in the system, by virtue of the fact that they are subject to its laws and their lives are impacted by its policies.

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

#286

Post by TangoTrotFox »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #208

This shouldn't be a surprise. Ownership comes with maintenance costs, and maintenance requires time. Americans work more than most developed nations [1] and work more than they used to. American commutes have also increased [2] steadily over the last 30 years. Given that, is there any surprise that Americans are less willing to own, and maintain, their things than they used to be? [1] https://nypost.com/2017/09/03/am…

The first point is untrue. The OECD measures hours worked per member nation. You can see the results here [1]. The United States is just about square in the middle. We work 1,789 hours per year. The OECD average is 1,763. That's 26 hours less per year, or 30 minutes a week, or less than 5 minutes a day. These hours are also way down from the past and contributing to income inequality. In the 60s most men, regardless of education, worked about 50 hours a week [2]. The article shows an informative graph on hours worked by income quintile. The bottom 20% of society works, by far, the fewest hours in all of society. The 20-40% quintile works substantially more than the bottom, but less still than the rest of society.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Average_annual_ho...

[2] - https://qz.com/574693/americans-working-less-than-ever-befor... (media article, but based on study which is cited with relevant numbers and figures shown)

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

#287

Post by cryptozeus »

I see tge point here. When I was renting apartment, I was not really involved with what was happening in the area or local housing community but now that i own a house, I regularly take part in local development meetings. We all have say in what gets build and what does not. Same can be applied to car rental vs owning a car.

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

#288

Post by brandonmenc »

Back in the 90s, I used to spend a sizable chunk of my high school and college income on physical media - music CDs in particular. And I couldn't even return them if they sucked.

I'm now able to own more other, actually useful stuff because I pay just a couple dollars a month to stream literally everything ever recorded. This is so much better.

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

#289

Post by rabboRubble »

captainarab wrote: post #217
burfog wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got burned by "buying a product and not knowing when it will fail". Samsung made the largest fridge available. I got the $2500 model: stainless steel, no IoT but digital, double doors over drawer freezer. It looked really solid and durable. It failed in so many distinct and interesting ways! The door shelves constantly shattered, at $50 each. The structure had been compromised by artistic design, with two kinds of…

How do you keep breaking so many refrigerator shelves..? I've never broken one in my entire life..

Heat.

If the shelf is glass, and the glass is not resistant against wide temperature variations, the glass weakens and eventually will shatter.

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