Why own a house?

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Just tripped over this fascinating short thought piece over at Cultureby, with a tie-in to my last post (on Google), plus implications for media and information business models – and possibly beyond. …the things we own, we will rent, and things we re…

I tend to make a different distinction…ownership is for when I know in advance and with substantial confidence exactly what I want, know that I’ll be able to get it on an ownership basis, and know that my desire for it will be more or less continuous through time. Rental is (in general) for everything else. So I own my car, my furniture and appliances, my clothes, my books, and my computers (and would own my residence if I had better credit), and rent just about everything else.

If I watched feature films more often, I might own DVDs just for the sake of convenience…Netflix has a multi-day turnaround time and B&M video rental shops are seldom open during my prime hours.

Especially intriguing is your toss-off of buying/creating a great room & owning DVDs as a staging ground for the “family media evening” fantasy. Surely a great many purchases are fantasy-scenario based, and most likely we soon will be able neurologically to measure and identify the contents. Probably market research a la Zaltman Metaphor Marketing already does.

I’d wager $$$$ that most, e.g. female clothing purchases, are “wardrobe for [ ] scenario.” The next interesting question is, What percentage of those unscheduled hopeful scenarios actually materialize? Then, I’d like to see consultancies that will help make it happen rather than rely on the attenuated causality of owning something new. Transfer expenditure from “stuff” to “experience,” which is the model of the wealthy. Next, M Darcy is right, ways to “mark” that ephemeral consumption may prove important. Because like owning DVDs we don’t watch (I personally don’t), it seems important to look around the room and assemble oneself and one’s history by the assembled bricolage (‘I am the person who owns “Fight Club,” who does not own Frank Sinatra’).

I grew up with a salon fantasy: superb conversation, fine food, witty reputation. Never happened. Now, in the tradeoffs of renovation, the cozy dining room becomes an indoor-outdoor river-rock be-fountained conservatory-office. Death of the old fantasy, new fantasy less dependent on the other ghostly dramatis personae, more responsive to actual scheduled events and measureable sensory pleasure.

So it’s all investment. Measuring the ROI is the modern consumer’s dilemma.

In as much as ultimately, it passes – metaphorically and in some instances quite literally – through us.

At the end of consumption we discard, upgrade, move on, or have to acquire more of the same to keep consuming.

Is the idea of ‘ownership’ simply a useful illusion we cling to or need? A sort of mask to hide the essentially transient nature of consumption?

For example, I purchase books to read knowing that I will not in all probablity read them again. Am I looking for some physical evidence or reassurance that the experience was not entirely transient and fleeting?

Are we moving from ownership to rental? Or simply an accelerated rate of consumption?

Are we witnessing paradoxical urges – at once a greater level of comfort with – or awareness of – the transient nature of consumption.

And at the same time a greater need to somehow ‘mark’ that consumption?

Whaddayareckon?

If I love a movie sufficiently, I want to establish a strong, unbreakable connection to it. The DVD is perfect for this. Buying it relieves me of worry. It is a task completed. The movie is now mine.

Perhaps it is the same kind of relief someone might experience after buying life insurance. It is something one was meaning to do and is glad to have gotten out of the way.

Here are a few more examples:

Renting fashion handbags
Owning party supplies (dishes, silverware)
Renting (leasing) automobiles
Owning books (wonder what’s happening to library lending stats)
Renting employees (consultants, temps, outsourcing)
Owning tuxedos
Renting military personnel (National Guard, reserves, civilian contractors)
Owning office equipment (copiers, shredders); remember when nobody had these?

The trend seems stronger on the “now renting” side.

There are two ways to use money: investing and spending.
Investing hopes to keep it for future use, hopefully with some increase. Spending, on the other hand, pisses it away forever.
For some people an expensive meal with a client is an investment. For others it is just another expenditure.