Soon To Be Obsolete? Owning Things

In theoretical energy-saving circles - those exist - there's an expected shift in the ownership model of various home goods you use everyday.  Today, you buy a dishwasher, run it till it won't run no more, drag it to the curb, and then buy yourself another.  You're the owner - you control that dishwasher's entire lifecycle.  Such a practice might be considered quaint in a decade or so.

You don't really want to buy a dishwasher, do you?  Unless you're a passionate collector of aluminum-and-plastic mechanisms, you're probably seeking something else - not a good, but a service.  You want clean dishes.  What you're paying Best Buy (and Kenmore, and so many other supply chain intermediaries) for is the service of expedient foodware sanitation, and it happens to come with a 115-lb cubic anchor.

Same goes for your furnace.  Your clothes dryer.  Even your lightbulbs.   You don't covet a $3500 steel-caged firebox, you covet the warmth it proffers.  You don't need a spinning metal cylinder, you need clothes that aren't soaking wet.  And no one's in the market for gas-filled glass ornaments - instead, we seek illumination.  It just happens that when we procure a service to fulfill a need, the transaction leaves you saddled with a "thing".  You buy it, you own it, and at the time of your choosing, you dispose of it.

Energy industry gurus foresee a future where a new sector rises up that specializes in taking your ownership of the "thing" out of the equation.  It'll no longer be your responsibility to shop for, purchase, and replace your burned-out bulbs with new ones.  Instead, you'll auto-pay your monthly light bill.  Sensors will monitor rooms, know when a replacement is called for, and ship you a new one.  In some cases, you'll ship the old one back.

For $49 a month, my fictitiously-dubbed Visicor Illuminaries will assure you of optimal lighting throughout your manor. Actually that's not a bad name. Don't steal it.

Ah, but here's the critical part.  Visicor isn't just covering the cost of the bulb, but the electricity, too.  So for six hundred bucks a year, you're assured a round-the-clock well-lit world.  And here's the value proposition - were Visicor not your lighting supplier, you'd be buying cheap, inefficient bulbs, and paying closer to $1000 a year, and sacrificing lighting quality (burned out bulbs, insufficient luminosity, mal-applied color temperatures, and so on).  Your purchasing decision has changed from upwards of a half-dozen annual stops to the hardware store for a wide variety of bulbs, lamps, fixtures and such, to one perpetual choice: what single-source vendor can supply all my lighting needs?

This is a significant departure from today's model.  And it will manifest itself in all sorts of ways. Your furnace - a large, upfront capital investment.  It either combusts natural gas or petroleum-based heating oil, both of which are supplies you'll pay for at an ever-increasing rate (fossil fuels in finite supplies).  And as it ages, it requires perennial service.  One day, you'll need to make a difficult decision and bite the bullet to have it replaced.  Not if you had a climate comfort supplier like Idealaire Temp Controllers.  ITC is the owner of your ultra-efficient furnace - one that costs twice the model you would have bought.  They have a roving crew of servicepeople that keep it optimally tuned - filters replaced, ductlines cleaned out, every weatherization function you can imagine.  They're overarching mission is to keep your family comfortable in all seasons.  For that, you pay a flat fee, year-round.  One of your most critical tasks as a homeowner was just taken out from under you - and it will save you 25% over your current costs.

Like it or not, it's a major paradigm shift, and it's coming.  As fuel prices steadily rise, the efficiency of your appliances will be increasingly prized.  There will emerge market opportunities for a player that has the capital backing to outlay for that top-of-the-line refrigerator - with a set, profit-packed payment package that helps smooth out your budget-making.

Meanwhile, the environment proves the ultimate winner.  When Visicor collects your spent bulbs, they recycle them.  The hyperefficient lighting they manage for you means fewer coal plants are built. When Idealaire retrieves your dead furnace, they disassemble its parts and dispose of them in the appropriate fashion.  The resources stay in the production loop.  Industry waste plummets.  Oil imports plummets.  Those dollars stay domestic - getting split between your climate comfort supplier and you, the savvy homeowner. 

Everything is in place for such a transition to begin.  There are no technological barriers, and economically there are only incentives.  The battle will be a cultural one - changing long-held behaviors that have been ingrained for generations.  But market forces are a powerful thing.  When the invisible hand begins putting things in motion, don't resist.  This paradigm shift will be a welcomed one.