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Comment by salawat | Hacker News Reader

Lets see:

A) You don't own the product. B) The product will likely require more contracts to be signed than physical count of objects being handed over. C) Creates a new opportunity for an insurance submarket. D) Only looks feasible due to increasing centralization of capital E) Yet another attempt at creating a company based around a recurring revenue stream F) Absolutely stupid name G) Is reliant on poor technology use habit H) Doesn't really solve any problems for the end user

Go home, tech. You're rent seeking again. Come back with an actual idea that solves a problem. The trend toward -- as a Service is really getting a bit grating. The -aaS bubble will pop sooner rather than later I hope.

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I disagree. There are pieces of technology that I want to try but don't want to fork up the cash for. I'm not sure if I'll actually use them or if they're worth the price.

VR, AR, 3D printers - basically anything at the cutting edge of the tech experience would be a good candidate. I can't justify spending $1,000 on a VR rig. But I don't mind paying a few dollars every month just to try the thing out.

> I want to try but don't want to fork up the cash for

see pretty much every point in the original comment but specific bad tech habit use.

If you're not really sure you need this stuff then you don't need it. Plain and simple.

If you don't have the disposable cash to pay for it outright then you can't afford it anyway.

With that all said you can try out the three examples you cite at your local Best Buy, Microsoft Store, Maker Space, Home Depot, etc etc.

If the argument is that you're in rural Idaho without access to this stuff then the business model is broken.

> If you don't have the disposable cash to pay for it outright then you can't afford it anyway.

You're conflating people who can't afford it with people who can afford it, but aren't certain that they want to buy it.

I think it might be valid to say that if you can't afford to buy it outright then you shouldn't lease it.

I can afford a VR headset, but what if I'm not sure which headset I would prefer for long term use?

> With that all said you can try out the three examples you cite at your local Best Buy, Microsoft Store, Maker Space, Home Depot, etc etc.

This is not the same thing as trialling something for hours/days in the comfort of your own space.

Also, what if I know I will only need an expensive item for 3 months?

> Also, what if I know I will only need an expensive item for 3 months?

Can you give an example?

Taking on a contract for development that requires testing on multiple physical devices that you don't already own

Using a 3D printer to prototype basic hardware at a company that doesn't expect to have more hardware products in the near future

Renting multiple VR/AR headsets for an extended customer demo

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It might be worth mentioning that I'm one of the founders of EquipmentShare, which is sort of similar but in the construction industry, so this type of business only seems natural to me. In our industry, the more variability in the equipment requirements of your jobs, the more difficult it is to be efficient with your capital. In construction nobody owns _all_ of the equipment they use; it would require far too much capital, and a large chunk of your fleet would sit idle most of the time. It's far more efficient to have a blend of owning and renting.

Then you negotiate the cost of acquiring the devices with the person you're doing the work for. Odds are they will either have them available as you are not the first contractor they've hired, or you are, in which case you should be telling them that unless they intend not maintain whatever you make for them, it would be wise to make sure they have the hardware to develop it further.

The 3D printing can be contracted out. Consumer grade 3d printers wouldn't be a wise investment in that case.

You're doing business in VR/AR development. If you are going to be anything over a one-man operation, youshouldalready have multiple VR/AR sets for development and testing purposes.

I appreciate the candidates, and can better appreciatewhere you are coming from. In construction, however, you have already transcended the "consumer grade" level of investment. You're now dealing with industrial grade equipment which is a completely different ballgame.

Several of your examples somewhat contradict the stated intention of the company from my understanding. They were looking to break into the market for consumer grade cutting edge tech, NOT for primarily business level customers.

The article paints a picture of a company not looking at other companies as customers, but the general public.

If they intend to focus on the Enterprise level, your arguments make sense. Not so much for private customers. The niche they are trying to fill is a symptom of a lopsided economy, not a healthy one.

All good points. Perhaps I read too much into the bit about them exploring the B2B space, as I see this being most useful for small businesses.

A high quality camera for a vacation

Media production gear for an art show

Hardware to demonstrate a proof of concept for a startup

Rentals for all of these use cases have already been around since before Grover.

For businesses, maybe. As a consumer, I can't think of any big name that rents out equipment this way

>If you're not really sure you need this stuff then you don't need it. Plain and simple.

This is not true at all. Often times people want to try out a new tool or process and are unsure of how it will actually perform. And it will take awhile -- not a couple of hours.

Often? citation needed.

> and are unsure of how it will actually perform

I'm sorry, this is argument (and I hate to be hyperbolic on HN) is simply laughable from both how consumers actually make purchase decisions on the whole and also from a business model.

"I'm not sure if a 3D printed part will work if I wanted a custom cell phone holder for my car?"

2 seconds later, looks like it can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgbxgz5S2dc

Modern consumers have grown accustomed to leveraging collective knowledge shared on various internet sources. They watch youtube reviews, read trusted review sites, take online courses.

For example, within a few minutes you can ascertain the pros and cons of the various VR headsets available on the market. You can understand the limitations of the tech in general. All without having to rent the equipment.

Then, in my experience, after having performed research they go try the tech out or just purchase it outright.

"But I only want to print a few things out" Then you just paid how much in rent for what you could get for a fraction off the shelf?

> Modern consumers have grown accustomed to leveraging collective knowledge shared on various internet sources. They watch youtube reviews, read trusted review sites, take online courses.

To be fair - businesses know this is true and thus as the internet as grown, all of those avenues have been wrought with fake / illegitimate / disingenuous claims...hence why there is a "I need to see/feel it myself to believe it's true".

> both how consumers actually make purchase decisions

Let's play fair then - source?

Fake reviews aside, it's core to Amazon.com's business model. Given Amazon's success I infer that a lot of consumers in general research products by going through reviews.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2009-10-15/amazon-tu...

> If you're not really sure you need this stuff then you don't need it. Plain and simple.

Goodbye software demos

Some obvious examples:

You may want to rent a drone for a holiday.

You may want to rent an Apple watch to find out if its something for you.

You may want to rent a projector for the world cup to watch games with your friends.

You may want to rent a Nintendo Switch just to play Mario Odyssey for a month.

Go to your local tech meetups if you live in a big city or local university. If neither of these apply to you then your SOL

I have access to laser etching machines that cost $50k, 3D printers, metal fabrication shops, woodshops, all sorts of cool makerspaces, and my local library has a full blown virtual simulation centers / audio recording studio / photography studio / circuit labs. I didn't even know half this stuff was openly available to me until 2 months ago

Everybody already has an existing solution for that. It’s called buy and return. There are some system costs created by it but those are already built into the price of products you buy. There are also real and perceived ethical issues but those come down to the specifics of how each person goes about exercising (using or abusing, depending on specifics) the freedoms the market system avails them in each specific situation. I can’t think of a valid reason to dismiss this solution as if it didn’t exist.

Is there a reason you can’t buy it and just return it if you don’t like it?

The prices you so wish to avoid are (or should be, barring destructive economic practices) temporary.

Furthermore, things like 3d printers suffer from "tool markup" the idea being that if you're just looking to make a thing or two, find someone else who has them and try theirs out to see if it works for your use case.

Virtual Reality hasn't really caught on in the non-industrial sense so as to have a large impact in the everyday life of a person. It can be invaluable for information rich design and analysis, and simulation purposes as well as entertainment, but the adoption is still in the nascent phase, likely held back by the price of the equipment itself, and limited talent pool. Could renting solve that by getting it in front of more people? Absolutely. In the same way giving out free samples of Cocaine/heroin to first time customers can. More advanced and efficient manufacturing of hardware, and increases in the flexibility and software utilized by the platform are the key to increasing uptake.

It may look good on the surface, but if you dig down deeper, it only seems a good model in the light of artificially suppressed wage growth decreasing the buying and ownership power of a majority of consumers.

If you want to make money off of expensive things, convince the market to pay people more. Don't rent seek.

Now if we were talking Lab or advanced scientific equipment, I could see the potential. This company, however, wants to focus on consumer grade tech which is already nearing ubiquity in the market (iDevice, insert chiq brand here). You aren't doing anything but changing the tech purchase from a 1 time investment in a tool to increase productivity into a recurring revenue stream.

It's not just economic rent seeking. They've literally invented equipment rental.

They reinvented Rent-A-Center.

Came to say same short thing... This really is indicative of a bad place to be... if you need to rent tech, you don't need it.

I can see using their service for things I just want to try out (eg VR glasses, game console) or which I need for a specific project (eg 3d printer, high end camera, all sorts of tools).

This is not a novel concept, there are already companies serving these markets. I don't think it's ridiculous to try to become the default option for all of them at the same time.

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