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Comment on How rental ‘libraries of things’ have become the new way to save money

Renting stuff makes sense, but there are still lots of inherent problems with tool libraries and the like.

They’re great for a carpet shampooer or chainsaw you need once a year, but if you actually want to fix and build stuff around the home then booking a tool, taking perfect measurements, hauling your stuff over to a tool library, building it, hauling everything back home to check it, is simply an infeasibly onerous process. The instant you make a mistake and need a different tool, or check a measurement, etc, you’re wasting hours of time, which is most often the biggest limiter for home projects anyways.

You also don’t get to learn on the same tool and build up instincts and understanding of how it behaves.

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A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I think you ahve a fundamental misunderstanding on how the tool libraries and stuff work…

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- masterspace@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’m conflating a tool library and a maker space but the same issues apply to both. Either way, for home projects you end up with a whole lot of extra transportation.
  
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  - FreakinSteve@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    None of this was about a maker space either
    
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    masterspace@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Cool beans bro, learn how to read a full comment.
    
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whoreticulture@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t see how going to the library is such a big hurdle? The closest library to me is less than ten minutes drive, and on the way to a lot of stuff. I don’t know this seems like a kind of insane objection. If you’re poor, it’s not like you’re just gonna spend $200 on a new tool anyway because you can’t. In my experience I’m more likely to just try to make do with the crappy alternative I have available.

This take just seems really privileged. The biggest barrier for a lot of people isn’t the time - it’s affording the tools in the first place.

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CrayonMaster@midwest.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I mean if you’re trying to learn to be a competent handyman or build a bookcase maybe yeah, but I just need a screwdriver set for like 30 minutes to put something together.

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- someguy3@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Now a multi screwdriver is something you can buy.
  
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someguy3@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You had it, then you lost it. It’s for those things you need only once a year or two years or never again.

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- Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Libraries of things should be state run and free at point of use. They should also be integrated into communities in a way that makes them easy to access. Instead of everyone having a lawn mower, you check out an electric mower once a week, on a date that you’ve reserved it, and the entire community uses it, or if in a large community, your immediate neighbors use it, and then it’s returned for the next people to use it.
  
  Libraries of things should not only be for things you use once a year. They should be for just about everything that you don’t use every day.
  
  Usafruct >>>>>> UsusFructisAbusus.
  
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