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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

#331

Post by Kalium »

qubex wrote: post #307
_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…

I might add that Silicon Valley et al has not simply cleverly redefined the meaning of ’sharing’ to cover their rental practices, but even the meaning of community has been totally warped out of shape. A community used to be a group of geographically proximate people whose collective survival depended on getting over their sometimes conflicting mutual interests and opinions in order to survive; now we use the term ’c…

Personally, I view this as a distinct upgrade. Instead of being coerced into lots of interaction with people I may have nothing in common with except vague geographical proximity, I have the option of interacting with people who actually share my interests or concerns or hobbies.

To me, this isn't isolated loners. It's the first real community I've ever known. The first one I've ever actually felt like I was a part of, where I was always welcome and could always rely on finding people like me.

I understand that some people dislike this shift. It's easy to see where it might be inconvenient for local communities that used to depend on coercing membership to exist. It used to be easy to erase those who were alone in the crowd.

You're absolutely right. We didn't get a Global Village. Instead, we have a network of Global Villages. They are many and diverse and offer genuine community to everyone in ways that the old approach no longer did. This is beautiful and terrible - it's a shift from surviving to thriving.

We finally get to see that there's an option other than ghettos run by the tyranny of geography.

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

#332

Post by _bxg1 »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #305
_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…

I don't own a safe, I rent a safe. It's fine. If ever these corporations cause trouble, our government (well, maybe not the US government, but most sensible governments) will step in to remedy the situation. We've done so with privacy laws, we've done it with non-compete laws, we're going to do it with other companies as well.

One can hope. But the U.S. government is so deep in the pockets of corporations - hiding behind America's blind worship of the free market - that I question if we'll ever get back to a place where it's willing to intervene.

Europe has been doing a great job of picking up our slack lately, but there's only so much they can do. Most of these companies are based in America, and most of the world's market is in Asia. There's a ceiling on how much the EU can fine companies before it's easier to just stop operating there. I'm sure those numbers have been crunched and that they're walking that line.

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

#333

Post by lolsal »

supernovae wrote: post #311
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…

What is the value of "owning" something? I've owned VHS's, they're worthless I've owned houses - that I had to short sell I've owned DVD's - they're worthless I've owned Books - they're worthless What is the value of owning over just paying to enjoy access? I like spotify because i can sync music to my phone to play offline - but "owning" all this music is worthless... I had a HUGE cd collection growing up but they w…

> I've owned VHS's, they're worthless ... > I've owned DVD's - they're worthless > I've owned Books - they're worthless

I honestly find this unbelievable and amazing. You have never rewatched a video, or re-read a book? You've never lent a movie or a book to a friend? You've never used a movie or a book to job your memory and spark a conversation with someone?

There is value in all of those things to me, not to mention the value of being able to watch a movie or read a book whenever I want, regardless of my current state of subscription to netflix/hulu/xfinity/cbs/amazon prime/hbonow/etc.

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

#334

Post by _bxg1 »

_bxg1 wrote: post #332
ppeetteerr wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't own a safe, I rent a safe. It's fine. If ever these corporations cause trouble, our government (well, maybe not the US government, but most sensible governments) will step in to remedy the situation. We've done so with privacy laws, we've done it with non-compete laws, we're going to do it with other companies as well.

One can hope. But the U.S. government is so deep in the pockets of corporations - hiding behind America's blind worship of the free market - that I question if we'll ever get back to a place where it's willing to intervene. Europe has been doing a great job of picking up our slack lately, but there's only so much they can do. Most of these companies are based in America, and most of the world's market is in Asia. The…

Brexit will not help the situation, either.

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

#335

Post by dionidium »

Someguywhatever wrote: post #316
dionidium wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans confuse control with love Ownership culture has always exhibited this sort of pathological tendency. People who live next to a park with a basketball court insist on an inferior hoop in their driveway. The suburbs are littered with garden sheds full of identical, mostly-idle tools. We insist on a car for every member of the household. Similar examples are readily conjured. To the extent that any of these…

If you want to share tools with your neighbor you have to know them and be on and maintain a good relationship with them. There are numerous downsides to borrowing and sharing, so much so that people would rather not do it. Nobody wants to pester their neighbor over and over to use some tool X. It's annoying for them and annoying for you. Ideally the tools would exist off both of your properties in some neutral place…

Fine, but that doesn't explain the installation of crappy Wal-Mart-special basketball hoops adjacent to the public park's pristine full-courts. Nor does it explain the U.S.'s intense aversion to public transit, which burns far hotter than any practical consideration could possibly explain. Neither does it shed any light on the sad way in which suburban dads build rickety basement bars, never stopping to consider that the point of the bar is that it is, in fact, located at the bar and not your basement.

There's pretty clearly something deeper here.

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

#336

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #165
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…

While I don't know that I agree with Tyler Cowen's original article, I don't think this is a particularly fair reading of it. Should we never question whether a societal trend is good or bad, because doing so can never come from any place other than "let's wave our canes at the younger generation?"

The point is certainly worth considering. I would personally consider myself more interested in truly owning the things I buy more than the average person, insofar as I regularly purchase and rip my own CD's so that I control the format, strip all of my Kindle books of DRM using Calibre, and contribute to the development of free software and free/libre operating systems so that I can be in complete control of my PC's hardware.

With that said, this article does a number of things that I find obnoxious. Namely:

1) The article gives Amazon a pass for implementing DRM into their books, and instead blames the people who buy Amazon ebooks. I consider that victim blaming. Amazon more or less has a monopoly on the ebook market, meaning if you buy an ebook, you're likely buying from Amazon. If you own a Kindle (which is, bar none, the best ebook reader on the market), you're buying from Amazon. And if you buy from Amazon, your books don't truly belong to you.

2) The article seems very much targeted at the younger generation. Buying digital books, digital music, and smartphones is a thing everyone does, but again, the older generation seems to get a pass on it. They own houses, after all, so from the author's perspective they surely won't "los[e] their connection to private ownership". But those poor naive youths simply can't buy an album off iTunes without giving up their stake in the system.

3) Many of the author's (valid) concerns have actionable ways to resist, which the article fails to mention. You can strip the DRM off ebooks. You can rip your own music and movies. You can load an after-market OS onto your Android phone when the carrier decides to stop supporting it. Some of these can be difficult and time-consuming, but that's the tradeoff for getting both the digital convenience and the freedom of true ownership.

To be clear, I very much dislike this trend of "licensing" everything for the sake of having it streamed to you. But I would argue that this is a business trend rather than a societal trend, as it has been implemented top-down by the nation's most powerful tech companies. The vast majority of people simply picked what was most easily available to them.

Put another way, I think it would be shameful to yell at a poor college student about contributing to the elimination of individual property for choosing to rent his college textbooks for the semester at 1/3rd of the price it would've cost to buy them. And that's largely what this article does.

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

#337

Post by logfromblammo »

_ah wrote: post #31
mud_dauber wrote: post #13

It's simple. Less stuff equals more freedom. Freedom to move. Freedom from debt. Freedom from "keeping up with the Joneses". Freedom from soul-crushing jobs.

I think it's more subtle than that. Needing less stuff gives freedom. Renting stuff instead gives less freedom... you have many of the same expenses as ownership, but if you ever stop paying your useful stuff disappears. Owned objects of utility provide insurance to ride out times with limited income.

Having rented things, and owned things, I have learned that some of the things I "purchased" just traded in lease contract terms for state laws, local ordinances, secured loan contract terms, community norms, and covenants.

If you can't do as you please with the things you buy, there is less advantage to owning over renting. The responsibilities involved in ownership start to look like rental contracts and terms of service agreements.

If I stop paying the average per-mile maintenance and operations cost for my car, it runs out of gas or breaks down. It is sometimes cheaper for me, with my own car, to rent one anyway for a long road trip, because they rent it per day without a per-mile surcharge, and that's just money paid now that does not get spent at the mechanic later, and could be recovered on resale or trade-in.

You really have to look at each rent-vs-buy decision on its own merits. It makes sense to own your DOCSIS modem, your underwear, and a cast-iron pan. All the other stuff is debatable.

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

#338

Post by caust1c »

Kalium wrote: post #331
qubex wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might add that Silicon Valley et al has not simply cleverly redefined the meaning of ’sharing’ to cover their rental practices, but even the meaning of community has been totally warped out of shape. A community used to be a group of geographically proximate people whose collective survival depended on getting over their sometimes conflicting mutual interests and opinions in order to survive; now we use the term ’c…

Personally, I view this as a distinct upgrade. Instead of being coerced into lots of interaction with people I may have nothing in common with except vague geographical proximity, I have the option of interacting with people who actually share my interests or concerns or hobbies. To me, this isn't isolated loners. It's the first real community I've ever known. The first one I've ever actually felt like I was a part o…

I used to think the same as you, but I realized that I was putting no effort into my local communities. Once I started to start putting more effort into the local community, I began to appreciate geographic proximity much more.

That said, as all things, there's a balance. The Internet is a great tool for bringing people virtually close together and spreading ideas. Sharing those ideas is a great way to enhance your local community.

> tyranny of geography

Haha. We're a long way from being omnipresent so you better get used to having neighbors. ;-)

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

#339

Post by PTPells »

daxfohl wrote: post #312

This seems to be the antithesis of the lesson taught in Rich Dad Poor Dad. Stuff is a liability. Even in "owning" it you're still beholden to it. You have to maintain it, store it, protect it, make sure nobody injures themselves with it and sues you. You don't own it, it owns you. Rental, in many areas, is an improvement. Own the couple things that matter to you, rent the rest. Perhaps it's not so much that Americans…

Your stuff owning you...neat inversion. For you personally, what questions do you ask yourself when deciding whether to "rent" or "buy" something? How have those questions changed with time?

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

#340

Post by dsfyu404ed »

ryandrake wrote: post #322
techsupporter wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 think you and the author conflated ownership of "stuff" with ownership of--or a stake in--society. All of the things you listed as owning versus the not-owning (whether it's called renting or leasing or subscribing) are trade-offs you made because you value the concept of ownershi…

> (One last question: Could you clarify "I do my own taxes?" What is it that doing taxes yourself, presumably by pen and calculator, gains over downloading a product like TaxAct and saving the PDF of the result?) The general principle I failed to articulate is that all other things being equal, I value Self Reliance over Interdependence. There are varying levels of interdependence though, maybe I can take a stab at r…

I'd personally flip 4 and 5 since I think having incentive not to screw you and recourse if you get screwed is important. Local businesses have much more reason not to screw people and people have much more recourse when screwed compared to state or national government.
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