Comments on: The not-shop

By: Alexander Quinn

Alexander Quinn — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 23:11:21 +0000

Interesting post. I think San Francisco and the smart phone world is hoping to enable more sharing and less ownership. Hence, the proliferation of sharing enabling businesses, like Sidecar (ride share), AirBnB (house share), Citibike (bike share) and even Toyshare (kind of like the Netflix of kids toys) are all receiving venture capital money. We all started doing this with our media but now we are moving into other areas where it becomes no longer required to own a item.

If you ask a young person today what is more important to them, their car or their smart phone, I bet most would say their smart phone. This has significant implications for consumer markets and potential disruptive impacts to retail real estate and government finance (e.g. property tax, sales tax, rental car tax, transient occupancy tax).

My one economist advice I give to people is sell your position in retail real estate. That market is only going to shrink.

-Quinn

By: Randall

Randall — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 23:12:31 +0000

I found the Prince Charles reference very interesting, as I frequently try to recycle / repurpose old stuff (and am an avid composter). With a little creativity, we wouldn’t be so wasteful.

By: I love this idea!

I love this idea! — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 23:14:38 +0000

I love this idea!

By: geogavino

geogavino — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 23:15:58 +0000

I think others are making some similar observations. About a year ago, I learned about the Station North Tool Library in Baltimore, MD, USA. I think it is quite extraordinary. Take a look at http://stationnorthtoollibrary.org/. Tools instead of books. There are a few of them and it's something I think will proliferate sooner or later.