Every household has a stove. Isn’t a communal oven where we all bring our dough a more environmentally ethical choice? My neighborhood has a laundromat but I have a washer and dryer. Is that selfish? Personally I’d love a communal heating system, I hate dealing with my furnace.
I take no offense to the conversation, but I think putting a stigma on drill ownership is quite low on the Social Irresponsibility Index.
Word up. A drill being a poor consumer choice is right up there with plastic straws being the worst environmental offense. How about sharing a lawn mower or weed whacker? Let alone a car.
You shouldn’t be lamenting the lack of skilled trades and also be arguing for less tools. I’m all for borrowing and lending, but we all need a basic tool kit.
But the transaction cost of borrowing my neighbors is much higher. I have to talk to him for 20 minutes, he has to find it, it’s not charged, it’s a piece of crap and the Chuck doesn’t work. An hour process for a 10 second job to hang the shelf.
I think a drill is a terrible tool to use as an example since it’s used for many purposes and almost any household chore. A better tool would be a Sawzall, it’s built for a niche tasks and can be essential for that one cut. I will absolutely have a chat with the neighbor to avoid trying to make a cut with a hand held hacksaw blade trying to cut a stud in half. I use it so infrequently I absolutely don’t need my own.
the average electric drill is used for 7 minutes in its lifetime.
This smells like a fact pulled from someone’s ass. This article thinks so too.
Supposedly, supposedly. There were lots of links in Steffen’s post, but no source was provided for the assertion that the average power drill is used for a total of just six to twenty minutes during its lifetime. (I find the numbers highly suspicious. I wrote to Steffen asking for his source, but haven’t heard back.)
I use drills everyday for work and have one at home that doesn’t get used much because if I want to get handy I don’t want to drive to work to get one.
Transaction costs, in this context, might also be called pain-in-the-butt costs, and pain-in-the-butt costs don’t have to get very high before you say, “Screw it, I’m buying a drill.” You accept, even welcome, low levels of utilization in order to avoid onerous transaction costs. And, yes, you are being totally rational. Utilization isn’t everything.
If you like pervy anime, star trek and speak German you’re home.
Block Linux and pervy anime and you’ll see a lot more star trek.
You’re correct, but it’s a fractal. It’s drills all the way down.