The theory is simple: instead of buying a household item or a piece of clothing or some equipment you might use once or twice, you take it out and return it.
The theory is simple: instead of buying a household item or a piece of clothing or some equipment you might use once or twice, you take it out and return it.
This sounds neat until it’s run for profit.
How would that ruin it?
Modest profit isn’t an issue, but most businesses of more than a certain size accumulate MBAs like some kind of parasitic fungus. They then proceed to wring out as much money as possible in the short term while destroying the business in the long term.
If it’s just a local guy making 5% or so a year off his one rental shop, that’s no problem.
Yeah pretty much. There are behaviors that are profitable but not good for the community.
Competition solves this.
The problem is maintaining competition. Another thing those MBAs salivate over is the idea of buying out the competition, and their squeeze-the-company-dry method can give them just enough money for just long enough to buy a competing business to run into the ground when the original one starts to give out. Like I said, parasitic fungus: move to a new host as the old one dies. Keeping them from spreading can only be accomplished by stronger government regulation than many people seem willing to see in place, alas.
Government regulation is needed for a healthy capitalism country yes.
In a purely profit business, you price things based on how much people are willing to pay for them.
That translates into things never being priced as being “worth it”, but almost worth it, and definitely not worth it for people with tighter budget
There’s a local store that rents outdoors gear (climbing stuff, camping supplies etc), it’s for profit and it’s great. Would be way cooler if it were a library, but the local business is totally affordable and easy.
I’ve used it several times. My friends and I plan an outing and plan supply pickup/dropoff as part of the outing.
So, the key is to run your business for loss. Wait, that’s called a charity, not a business. How is this thing supposed to work?
Libraries don’t make a profit, AFAIK. Non-profits and co-ops are things too.
That’s true. If something doesn’t directly make money, it can still exist because of taxes or another arrangement like that.