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Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

> When people share and rent things instead of buying them, does that mean we need to produce less stuff, requiring fewer jobs, ultimately creating less economic growth?

Hey look! It's our old friend, the Broken Window Fallacy [1]. It has been so long since I've seen it I've almost missed it.

Waste is never good for an economy. If it were, we could have an amazing economy by setting up factories and recycling plants right next to one another and skipping the output. That's massive activity, but zero productivity, and it's productivity that we want.

[1] http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fal...

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> Waste is never good for an economy. If it were, we could have an amazing economy by setting up factories and recycling plants right next to one another and skipping the output. That's massive activity, but zero productivity, and it's productivity that we want.

There's a Keynesian argument that it's worth maintaining high employment by having some people do unproductive work (in effect a stealth way of doing wealth redistribution from productive to unproductive (bwim poor) people), because the velocity of money is higher in their hands.

If we were all out of productive things to do, that might make some sense. I just have never seen that happen.

There's always something that needs cleaning, infrastructure that needs upgrading, things that people need to learn.

It makes sense as long as a lot of people are unemployed. Which they are. If you can figure out a way to get those unemployed people doing more productive things, great! But if you can't, there's an argument that you should hold off on creating more unemployed people.

Ah, I see what you're saying. I'm still not sure it makes complete sense. I think it requires people not figuring out what they're doing is pointless. Otherwise, I think you're better off just giving them unemployment checks. But better still to send them to school, or give them productive work of the sort that no individual can pay for.

Well if that was the case its interesting that products are built to expire. Cause its certainly good for companies.

Waste is just a resource we have not found a way to utililze, we will.

>Well if that was the case its interesting that products are built to expire

No, it's not.

Yes it is.

Our problem is too much supply and way to little demand.

Intentionally designed obsolescence has literally nothing tondonwith Bastiat's broken window fallacy.

No but it has to do with the claim "waste is never good for any economy". Which is obviously wrong.

It's only wrong if you interpret "any economy" to refer to local ones which don't have to deal with some of their own negative externalities.

If you interpret "any economy" to refer to "any global economic system," then yes, waste is always bad.

No it's not. It's necessary. Your definition is just too narrow.

Why would you think waste is necessary? I understand that it's utopian to avoid, but it's a necessary evil in that case. You seem to suggest that it's a necessary good. Why?

> products are build to expire

They aren't - the replacements are higher productivity.

See the PC market for what happens when the replacements are not higher productivity.

Eh yes they are. Not all but quite a lot of them.

There is also, what looks like efficiency is merely externalization of costs. It may be highly efficient for you to let your apartment on AirBnB but only because you are passing your hidden costs onto your neighbours.

What does waste have to do with sharing vs. owning?

Roughly, if two people need to use a car half-time, it is more wasteful for them to own separate cars than to arrange to share one.

Only if the "half-time" is consistently and predictably non-overlapping without interfering with the efficiency of whatever operation produces the need.

But if there is some uncertainty and/or overlap it's still not necessarily a deal breaker- you can buy a lot of bus passes for the price of half a car.

Sort of like by using a schedule? Posted online? On one convenient website? Like airbnb?

Owning things that you use infrequently is inefficient. If you could rent or borrow it for the actual time that you need it, then you are wasting (time|money|other) if you own.

Unless you can rent it out when you aren't using it, in which case owning it may be more efficient.

Both sides of the same coin. Own and rent it out, or rent-when-you-need. The net of these two in action reduces overall waste.

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