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How rental ‘libraries of things’ have become the new way to save money
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 06 May 2024
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Not sure if dystopia
It's dystopic if most can only afford to rent what they always need. IMO being able to rent something you rarely need is a good thing.
I'd much rather have my car for day to day driving and rent something with more space the few times I need to move something that won't fit in my car. Even better would be to have ride share programs to use for medium loads and reliable mass transit for trips where I don't have much to move.
Even better would be that Arcimoto MUV thing. Sadly it appears they went bankrupt
Cool
These things always fail because ultimately it's just a motorcycle with extra garbage.
And how is that a bad thing?
No one wants it. The people that are comfortable in a car don't want to be outside and will replace their current car with another car. The people with a motorcycle don't want it because they already have a bike. The cyclists would rather just have a cargo bike. Ultimately, there's no market for these things, so they always, always fail.
Ultimately, people would rather buy a Caterham than one of those stupid things for about the same price.
https://caterhamcars.com/en/find-buy?model=Any
There is a roof. People aren't getting exposed. There are also optional door coverings I've seen.
The rest of your argument sounds like it works against any new vehicle purchase, not to mention the added comfort this has over many bikes. At around $19000, the FUV is cheaper than any of these silly, roofless and less capacious Caterhams you've linked. Not to mention gas prices.
LOL mate you don't have to convince me. Your argument is irrelevant [just look at sales.] and I don't give a shit.
Looks a lot like a BMW prototype I saw almost 20 years ago. I kept hoping they'd bring it to market, but I guess it's safe to give up on it by now!
They brought it to market for six glorious years but couldn't achieve mass-production and spent way too much on a ton of SKUs most people don't want before they basically went bankrupt.
it's not dystopic in the sense that companies are selling tools to people who don't need tools for an extremely prolonged time.
That would be fucking dystopic, being forced to buy tools you don't need, because it's the only option to get them.
Quite the contrary: it reduces wasteful consumption and reducing consumption is a requirement for Ecological recovery.
I would say that buying for very infrequent use or for a temporary need something which can be used with no problems for much more than that, is wasteful consumption at a systemic level - there should be alternatives.
Sure, owning your own personal high powered professional drill satisfies the greedy animal inside, but it's not exactly wise of justified for most of us even just at a personal level. Ditto for quite a lot of other things.
The drive to own lots of shit isn't healthy, both in a personal sense and in a systemic sense (including but not limited to Ecological), though it sure makes a ton of money for those who own most Productive Assets and all the ones is supporting areas such as Money Lenders, that most humans act as Consumers only limited by the maximum indebtness they can get into with their income.
Even if people can afford to own tons of things they barelly use, it would actually be better for everybody if that wasn't common.
The only dystopia element of this is that in Late Stage Neoliberal Capitalism people are being pushed to rent because of the miniscule and worsening share of the wealth produced that workers get - or in other words, shit salaries whilst investment income has never been this good - as they can't afford to own anymore, rather than because of a shift in the way people thing and them actually wanting to rent rather than own.
It’s the cracks in dystopia. Good things that would be awesome without dystopia but wouldn’t start without dystopia. Public libraries are a relic of the gilded age dystopia for example