Thoughts on Minimalism and Collaborative Consumption

Every once in a while, I like to take a sabbatical from things. These self-imposed bouts of minimalism have shaped my relationship with items. A teenage summer adventure riding the Greyhound and hitchhiking through the Western United States and Canada, punctuated by a 230 mile, 20 day backpack through the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. A winter spent pedaling a touring bicycle up and down the rolling hills of New Zealand, cooking and camping gear, clothing and other essentials jammed into four backpack-sized panniers.

Shrinking your life inventory to carry-on size and transporting it under your own power will give you a new perspective on what’s needed and what’s not.

Then I come home. On the American scale of consumption, I’m pretty middle of the road. Apart from a couple of big-ticket items (pickup truck, motorcycle) and a pretty stacked collection of sports gear, I live a pretty simple existence. My auto-recurring Amazon Prime membership goes to waste: my only order since moving to San Francisco was for a pack of black socks and a cassette of Mach 3 razors. The guys at work make fun of my wardrobe repeats, the function of a limited closet; if I ever need a suit for work, I’ll have to go all meta on you and rent it through Rentcycle. I live in a bare room in an otherwise furnished apartment; girls are generally unimpressed when they see that I sleep on an Aerobed, which sits next to a nightstand I found on the corner of Page and Brodrick.

I credit the experiences above for informing my relationship with items. I look around, though, and realize that this “less is more” approach won’t work for everyone. We’ve been painted an illusory picture, where the average American thinks he or she can purchase his or her way to happiness. It’s bullshit, but what we’re left with after one hundred years of clever marketing (Happy Meals!), planned obsolecense (iPhone 4, iPhone 4S), and cheap credit (McMansion Expansion).

As a concept, minimalism is awesome. In practice, I don’t think it can affect change on the scale needed to save a rapidly warming world that’s running out of space for more landfills. What has been giveth, cannot so easily be taketh away.Do you want to be the one to explain to Joe from Muncie, Indiana that nirvana is to be found in cleansing himself of the items he’s worked his whole life to accumulate?

Now contrast that conversation with introducing Joe to the possibilities of Collaborative Consumption. A Tesla electric sports car shared via Getaround. Paintings borrowed from Artsicle. A power washer rented through Rentcycle. Now you’re talking about giving Joe more, rather than taking anything away.

I’m damn proud to say that, through my work at Rentcycle, I stand at the forefront of the Access Economy. I’ve invested time, money, and passion into making Collaborative Consumption the basis of the 21st century economy, so I’ll just come out and say it: I don’t want minimalism to be a part of that conversation. For this thing to work, I believe the focus needs to be on offering people more, rather than demanding that they live with less. For true, widespread adoption, the core message cannot be one of sacrifice.

Collaborative Consumption: The Answer for Occupy?

Across America and around the world, the self-proclaimed 99% occupy parks and civic centers, facing the uncertain prospect of a forced eviction that could come at any moment. Whatever your politics, it’s difficult to remain impartial as videos of pepper-sprayings proliferate on YouTube, and the New York Times publishes a former Poet Laureate’s account of his wife’s beating at the baton of a Berkeley police officer. What the hell is happening here?

I respect these people’s courage, but I’m somewhat discouraged by the movement, taken on the whole. MLK was hell-bent equal rights for African-Americans; Gandhi was determined to banish the British from the continent; Mandela fought to force the integration of a country and the end of Apartheid. These movements gave us powerful moments in history: the end of Jim Crow, lynchings, and school integration; a bloody but history-altering Partition; a black man taking the oath at a swearing-in ceremony that would have been unthinkable a decade earlier.

What would this moment look like for Occupy? A headline announcing the financially unsustainable capping of Wall Street salaries? Economically unviable legislation giving underwater homeowners temporary respite from their creditors? These would be less a revolution than an ill-advised band-aid on a broken-down system.

With the 99%er’s intense fixation on the 1%, they fail to realize that destiny lies in their own hands. Technology and the continuing rise of sophisticated collaborative consumption models empowers “the rest of us” to transact almost exclusively with each other, removing the corporation as middle man and barrier. I believe the 99% can reach that perfect equilibrium (and a considerably more even playing field) by embracing these new platforms.

After all, why fight ‘em if you can just forget ‘em?

ProFounder and Kickstarter to take the place of overbearing Venture Capitalists and obscene bank rates.

Skillshare to take the place of a Higher Ed. system with tuition that has increased 400% since 1985, blowing inflation out of the water.

AirBnB to take the place of a massively inefficient hotel system, run by a few major chains and plagued by empty paved no-man’s lands aside interstates across the United States.

The list goes on, with a common theme: there are options, whether they’ve been built yet or not. Given everything I’ve read and seen over the past year, I can’t help but think that these two movements are reaching their respective climaxes simultaneously for a reason. The real question: how to get the message to the folks in Zuccotti Park.

Cross Country Moves: Joining @Rentcycle in San Francisco

18 days ago, I spoke to Tim Hyer for the first time.

16 days ago, I decided to leave Colorado behind for California.

14 days ago, I packed up and hit the road.

12 days ago, I arrived.

10 days ago, I started work at Rentcycle.

It’s been a wild ride.

We’re working hard to make renting things easy. Amazon, Zappo’s, and Buy.com created e-commerce for the masses: a streamlined system for finding and purchasing items online. Constant innovation and iteration have led us to a point where it’s now easier to buy stuff online, than offline.

Rentcycle is doing the same for rentals. Currently, the industry’s online presence is disorganized and inefficient. A homeowner looking to rent a power drill is stuck in the yellow page days: calling around to local stores for availability and pricing. When Amazon offers one-click checkout and free 2 day shipping for new purchases, this time burden is a huge barrier to entry for renting.

Soon, renting things will be just as easy. Availability, price, location, reviews, all in one place, with a quick and painless reservation and checkout process. No more phone calls for quotes on skis, tuxes, backhoes, bouncy castles.

So I’ve gone all in, and moved to San Francisco. I couchsurfed, commuted at 4:45 AM, and dipped into hotel points as I frantically searched for an apartment (a real mission in this city). I exchanged the known in Colorado for the unknown in California, and it’s scary.

It’s a leap. The hours are long. The work is hard. But I’m excited to be adding value to a platform with such amazing transformative potential, surrounded by an incredibly smart group of people who teach me new things each day. I’ll leave you with our mission statement. We’re busting our asses to accomplish the following:

“To elevate the way society consumes by spearheading the shift from ownership to usership. To inspire a community of sharing that reduces production, reuses what we already have, and makes the world a less cluttered place to live.”