Long gone are the days when a milk man delivered the milk. We have gained, however, infinitely more services, especially with the internet’s advancement. Way better, perhaps, than milk delivered to your door.
These days, there are services available to meet almost every need. We watch DVDs via Netflix, stream music and shows online, print pictures and documents at labs, read newspaper and magazine articles for free and so on. With these services, who needs to own physical DVDs, CDs, or even a magazine subscription?
According to an article in The Atlantic, the future of consumption means owning fewer products and using more services.
What if this theory of consumption expanded to home products?
For instance, the article quotes a post at Harvard Business Review by Henry Chesbrough:
What’s more exciting is how you will consume refrigerators in the near future. Will you even need to buy one? Perhaps manufacturers will lease you a fridge and charge a low monthly rate for managing your refrigeration needs. They might bundle energy costs in as part of the package and then help you find ways to reduce energy usage. They’ll probably invite you to share clever ways to use refrigerators, or comment on their own ideas, and innovate even better offerings next time. We will increasingly consume products like refrigeration as services rather than as products.
So, products such as refrigerators (and one could assume ovens, microwaves, dishwashers, etc.) could become services for your needs. In the future, we may all possibly save on energy costs and not have to worry about actually purchasing any of these products.
What home products would you want to see become services?
