Technology

58150 readers

6154 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

795

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

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

222 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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 3 points 4 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.