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- The Future of Renting vs. Buying
The Future of Renting vs. Buying
We are clearly seeing a trend towards businesses outsourcing functions of what they do. Manufacturing is an obvious one, but there are countless other examples.
Businesses are getting out of manufacturing, staffing, etc.
Uber will soon let you get rid of your car
Residents are hiring others to clean their apartments
Apple is now going to let you rent your iPhone
I think there is a far more significant trend taking place within technology, within business, and even within performance efficiency in general—for both personal and business.
The trend is that people will only perform themselves the thing that differentiates them from others. Everything else will be given to others to manage.
For companies, that means having a core set of business leaders who create and initiate the execution of ideas. For people it means creating art or music or some other type of core value.
But everything that isn’t that will likely be handed off to those that specialize in that thing. There will be services for everything.
Finding you dates
Finding you the best employees
Picking the best place for you to eat tonight
Choosing a college
Doing your laundry
Building your widget
Patenting your idea
These are things that people and businesses used to do themselves, and that’s about to go away.
At the center of a business or person’s focus rings is the defining push of one’s life or business. As the rings go outward they become increasingly separated from the concept itself, and therefore more outsourceable.
Expect both high-performing businesses and individuals to increasingly spend time on the center, and farm out the rest.
Stated differently, we’ll only buy things that are central to our identity. Everything else we’ll rent.
Notes
This means buying things that relate to the center, and renting everything else. For people that means iPhones and cars, and for businesses that means datacenter and staff.