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Fifty years ago, you would have just knocked on your neighbour's door or asked the guys at bowling night. Wanting to borrow a drill or a tent isn't new; not kno

• probablybroken 9y ago
  It also used to cost proportionally more of your disposable income; You'd probably be more inclined to borrow an item if it would cost the next month's cash to acquire.
  • jgalt212 9y ago
    indeed, outside of luxury items, things have become very cheap. real estate, health care, and education have become very expensive. As an aside, one can pin the persistence of ZIRP on the Fed measuring the wrong things. https://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/5/4/15547364/baumol-cost-disease-explained https://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/5/4/15547364/baumol-cost-...
    • kbutler 9y ago
      I found this graph in that article particularly interesting: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jizjAuIFp6g2ADWJCZv3tfj34cA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8465151/pricesgoodindex2.jpg https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jizjAuIFp6g2ADWJCZv3tfj34cA=... The alternative explanation for those items is that items whose price is subsidized and/or not fully disclosed to the consumer tend to rise. The graph shows everything dropping in price except: - shelter (slight rise - real estate is tax advantaged and routinely debt-financed over decades) - medical care (significant rise, and insurance and tax shelter of insurance and government programs hide the full cost) - college (very heavily subsidized, by government, schools, and parents) The other items the article mentions (summer camps, veterinary care, and broadway shows) are all luxury goods. At least if you're not a farmer/rancher for a living. Yes, the thesis that services become relatively more expensive is interesting, but the effect of subsidies and hidden prices is well understood already.
  • sotojuan 9y ago
    I still wouldn't buy a drill today, but I'd consider renting one from Home Depot before asking neighbors (mostly because the idea of asking neighbors wouldn't cross my mind, to prove GP's point).
    • grogenaut 9y ago
      A drill/electric screwdriver is probably the most useful power tool today for a home owner. If you don't own one you likely wouldn't own any power tools. And at a car ride and $20 a day rental it doesn't take long to justify the on sale price. Are you space constrained or do you just not do simple maintenance yourself or is there some other reason my engineer brain isn't grokking. Eg I wouldn't even work on a light switch without a power drill because I don't want to make the literal 200 revolution over 5 minutes per screw to check if it's out. Also it's harder to shock yourself. And to be fair I own not just a drill but woodworking tools and metal working tools (lathe mill) and a 3d printer and cover a laser cutter and a welder that does aluminum. So maybe I'm biased.
      • jeffwass 9y ago
        "Eg I wouldn't even work on a light switch without a power drill because I don't want to make the literal 200 revolution over 5 minutes per screw" 200 revolutions, 5 minutes? What kind of screws are in your light switch? I've never seen one that took a sizeable number revolutions. A quick check suggests 6-32 threading is standard. That means 32 threads-per-inch, so your 200 revolutions means your light switch screws are six inches long??
        • jedberg 9y ago
          Or he has 12 1/2" screws. :)
          • jeffwass 9y ago
            Poster explicitly mentioned per screw
  • ajross 9y ago
    This is exactly it. The drill in question is the kind of thing you find on special at Home Depot for $30. Likewise for (just riffing on the stuff I see in the photos in the linked article) the therma-rests and tents for camping, or the collection of board games[1], etc... Basically, the causality in the grandparent's analysis is wrong. We aren't refusing to borrow stuff from our neighbors because we're unable due to some modern affliction, we don't bother because someone gave us that drill for father's day last year. The junk is the cause, not the effect. [1] Which is hardly a new phenomenon. The home I grew up in 40 years ago was drowning in these things too.
    • tootie 9y ago
      Home Depot also does rentals of more expensive items.
      • lostlogin 9y ago
        Does the US have tool renting places for contractors? The ones here have all sorts of tools, including massive stuff (e.g. Excavators, trench cutting equipment, graders). They aren't particularly cheap to use, but they have what is needed. Excessively dirty or broken tools get refunded too.
        • allannienhuis 9y ago
          Yes, both the US and Canada have tool/equipment rental places that are used by both contractors and homeowners for this sort of thing. They're usually focused on the bigger ticket items, but often have smaller speciality items too. The thing that interests me about the maker spaces is that they provide a _place_ for this activity where the equipment is already set up, and a community of people that are interested in sharing their skills. You don't really find that at the commercial tool rental places.
          • lostlogin 9y ago
            Certain tools do get me thinking of the neighbours - angle grinder and welder for sure.
  • TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
    Is this actually true? Is there anyone here who was an adult in the 60s / 70s who can attest to this? Even then it would be anecdotal. If we've got data let's go with the data. If all we've got is opinions let's go with mine. I'd probably not be inclined to borrow a thing if it cost next month's cash to replace it when I break it. I would be more inclined to hire a thing from a company who hires things. That way, if it breaks, no one is put out.
    • osrec 9y ago
      Agree, the more expensive something is, the less inclined I am to borrow it.
      • TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
        Or lend it out, for that matter. But even a $10 tool I won't led out. No, you're not borrowing my 15mm spanner because I'll never get it back. That could be less of a problem when you're borrowing it from an actual service like the one in the article. Yeah, that's basically it: I won't borrow or lend out from individuals, but when there's a contract in place (supported by a membership fee in this case) that defines the limits of liability and cost of replacement then it's not borrowing anyway. It is, as someone else mentioned, hiring.
    • tonyedgecombe 9y ago
      I remember my parents lending their caravan to friends in the seventies, they would lend and borrow tools as well. The reason I remember is they were constantly complaining about the state things were returned in, breakages were frequent.
    • eloisant 9y ago
      In my neighborhood in France we keep lending/borrowing each other stuff all the time. It probably helps that most of the resident are eldery people who accumulated a bunch of useful stuff.
    • grogenaut 9y ago
      I have a random alternate data point. There are a ton of craftsman metal lathes out there from the 20s to 60s. I think more people had way more workshop capabilities. But anecdotally I notice that people prefer to either do metal stuff or wood stuff. They take the same type of tools but don't really cross over (wood lathe really doesn't work on metal and vice versa). Enough so that most people can't afford both, in terms of space or money. Also hot metal chips cause sawdust to go up in flames, sawdust gets all up in your metal cutting oils and coolant, so you have to keep a cleaner shop than usual. As for renting stuff, rental gear is usually beat to shit by people who a) don't know what they're doing, b) are too cheap to pay for the real tool, so they'll use a small sander (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006EKFZQ4/ref=asc_df_B006EKFZQ45036275/?tag=hyprod-20&creative=394997&creativeASIN=B006EKFZQ4&linkCode=df0&hvadid=167129443640&hvpos=1o9&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6325627301628104909&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9033294&hvtargid=pla-272778524386 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006EKFZQ4/ref=asc_df_B006EKFZQ450...) rental to resurface their floor when they need a full size one to really do a house (https://www.amazon.com/Clarke-Drum-Sander-Ez-8-Expandable/dp/B000RO7R2I/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1497814348&sr=1-1&keywords=hardwood+floor+sander https://www.amazon.com/Clarke-Drum-Sander-Ez-8-Expandable/dp...) [had a friend do this, but he just under rented and went right back an hour later], or use a drill as a saw, c) or just don't give a shit about the equipment and beat the crap out of it anyway... eg moral hazard. I've rented tools where it looked like it was fine and immediately broke (person glued the pull starter onto the engine when string broke). I then had to spend an hour discussing with the rental place if I broke it. Another time they forgot a part and tried to charge me for it then 20 minutes later found it on the floor. They're generally a good store but it's a shitty market.
• deleted 9y ago
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• dheera 9y ago
  When I was studying at MIT people would knock on my door all the time to borrow tools, cables, kitchen gadgets, and various other things that I typically had. I didn't mind at all. I think we need to reduce the amount of "stuff" in the world and share more. Since I graduated and in the Bay Area now I realized that my closest friends, and pretty much anyone I knew, is no longer located next to me. Every time I want to borrow something it involves figuring out when someone living 20km away from me will be available, worry about bothering their schedule and making them stay home when they don't want to be, and then spending $25 on Uber rides* round trip to get it, and then another $25 on Uber rides to return it to them later. In most cases I could just buy that drill off Amazon for less than $50 instead. *I don't own a car because I avoid using a car when not necessary (e.g. commuting with a bicycle and public transportation), only need a car for occasional hiking trips and events, and believe in sharing, and my Lyft+Uber+Zipcar+Enterprise costs per month are less than the cost of car ownership.
  • Cursuviam 9y ago
    As a current student there, it's real useful to be able to hit up a mailing list of your neighbors, when you need to borrow something.
    • chuckdries 9y ago
      What is it with MIT and mailing lists? I don't know anyone who doesn't go to MIT that uses them the way my MIT friends do. I go to ASU, the only mailing lists I'm a part of are the ASU Linux User Group and a bunch of MIT lists that I've found my way to.
      • dheera 9y ago
        Mailing lists are awesome! E-mail is an open protocol so it's easy to write advanced filters that you can't do with Facebook or other walled gardens. I had an algorithm trained to recognize free food, for example. At MIT they can also double-up as AFS groups so it's easy to control access and message a team without having to update membership in two places.
• Vektorweg 9y ago
  The problem is, that you have to move for every new job. Our parents and grandparents lived in the same very spot for decades.
  • throwaway2016a 9y ago
    This. In the last 10 years I have lived in 7 different places in 5 different cities. Either because I had to move or because my wife got a new job. Most of my friends growing up live in a town I haven't lived within 300 miles of in 13 years. 4/5 times if I make a new friend one of us (sometimes me, sometimes them) moves far away within three years. I bought a house a few years ago so now I have forced stability (moving is too expensive so to make me move it would have to be an incredible opportunity).
  • evanlivingston 9y ago
    You don't have to move for new jobs, you have to move for the kinds of jobs people on HN want.
    • deleted 9y ago
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    • throwaway2016a 9y ago
      Not necessarily true. I know people who have moved to get low paying jobs at retail stores because the closest place hiring unskilled labor would have been a several hours of driving every day. Not so much any more, I think the market has improved. But still, most of the low to middle income people I know don't live in their home town any more because there simple aren't a lot of job in small town America so they go to cities.
      • Avshalom 9y ago
        Or just getting priced out of your apartment, that 2.5% raise can't hold up against 5% lease increase for long if you were already on the cusp of affordability.
  • 9y ago
• mc32 9y ago
  I think in a time when one might not know one's neighbors well, it might help to have an inventory of things available --we would know who has an awl or a wet vacuum, etc.
• OldPersonPlus 9y ago
  Please stop yelling at the clouds, and remember to take your meds.
• ebbv 9y ago
  This still happens in my town. It probably still happens in any community where it would have happened 50 years ago and doesn't in ones it wouldn't have happened in. Your view on what our society is like right now is colored by where you live.
• gnicholas 9y ago
  Where I live (near Palo Alto), people borrow/loan stuff on Nextdoor all the time. It has been a good way to avoid one-time purchases, and to get to know neighbors.
• fit2rule 9y ago
  That is a very salient point. When isn't society being re-built, though? More to the point, those 'golden days' still happen, and are not unique to any particular culture. There are plenty of neighborhoods in the world still yet where these things happen.
• deleted 9y ago
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• GuB-42 9y ago
  It is still done, and it pisses me off a lot. I am usually the one with all the stuff, especially tools. And people tend to borrow from me a lot. I tend to be fine with it, but some people abuse it. They damage my stuff or lose parts and don't offer any kind of compensation, expect me to take care of the return or just forget it, etc... These people are a minority, but they are also those who tend to borrow the most. With this mindset, it is no surprise people get protective of their stuff. At least, a "library of things" has ways of dealing with abusers without endangering friendly relationships.
• drivingmenuts 9y ago
  I'm not sure this accomplishes any rebuilding though. Sure, it's a place one can borrow things for a fee, but so is Rent-A-Center and the amount of social interaction is the same as any retail store. One might get to know the people there over time, but it's hardly necessary to do so.
• s0rce 9y ago
  This is very true, however, in my experience seems mostly limited to apartments/condos, when I've lived in apartments I rarely interact with my neighbors. When I've lived in houses in less dense areas I've always been friendly with my neighbors and frequently borrowed tools, ladders and other household items from them. Go meet your neighbors everyone, make friends and then you don't all need to have a 20ft extension ladder! I wonder if other people have seen the same trend?