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How rental ‘libraries of things’ have become the new way to save money (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 6 months ago by Aatube@kbin.melroy.org to c/technology@lemmy.world

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The theory is simple: instead of buying a household item or a piece of clothing or some equipment you might use once or twice, you take it out and return it.

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[-] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 11 points 6 months ago

I agree with the first part, but they are using the terms interchangeable of renting and borrowing. Talking about renting and subscription in the same vain as borrowing.

I just don't want the very cool idea of a library economy to be conflated with the "you own nothing" subscription/rent everything economy.

They both have similarities but the actual ownership matters IMHO or else you get rent seeking/enshittification.

[-] realbadat@programming.dev 3 points 6 months ago

That's fair, I'd agree the article does a terrible job of differentiating, and a company calling itself a library in it's name doesn't make it a library, just a rental service playing pretend for profit.

this post was submitted on 06 May 2024

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