I’m fascinated with the services that are popping up in Italy – and now, I see, in the U.S. – enabling people to rent instead of buy things and to rent out the things they have: to share, in short.
The Washington Post writes about Zilock.com, Rent-instead.com, Chegg.com for textbooks, and Babyplays.com for toys (well-sanitized, one hopes). Not to mention the ultimate in sharing things, Zipcar.
I take a tour around my house and it’s hard to come up with a long list of things I’d only want to rent and no longer need to buy – tools, mainly, because I’m a klutz and try to avoid all handyman chores (whenever I tell people who know me that I’m using a chainsaw, they shudder at the thought). But I can imagine things I might not buy but would want to rent: a great digital camera or video camera, for example.
So I don’t see this phenom as a major force in the economy. I think we’re more likely to see sharing brought to assets like office space and equipment. Still, it’s just one more case of innovation yielding efficiency instead of growth.
Here’s the Post on these services:
Zilock.com came about like this: In the fall of 2007, a couple of friends in France were trying to hang something up on a wall and didn’t have a drill. They thought about buying one but somehow calculated that a drill is used only an average of 12 minutes in a lifetime. It made no sense to buy one, they argued.
“We were thinking about all of the drills lying around the building or the block and we had no access to it. We thought there are so many ways you can sell your things online but no way to borrow things,” Boudier said.
The peer-to-peer renting Web site first launched in France and Belgium. Once it took off, the founders expanded to the United Kingdom and the United States. Boudier, who is the U.S. general manager, said there are now 100,000 items for rent just in America. Not only are there drills up for grabs but infant car seats, camping gear, and digital cameras. “We are offering new ways for people to save and make money,” he said.
