The problem is that there&#x27;s no easy and workable way to share most stuff, even though it&#x27;d be nice so we didn&#x27;t need to own so much stuff.<p>Tools, for instance: if something breaks in your house, you need a tool <i>right now</i> if you want to fix it.  Your toilet stops up?  You need a plunger, NOW.  You sure as hell don&#x27;t want to sign up to borrow or rent one and wait a week for that.  And do you really want to use someone else&#x27;s plunger?  What if they didn&#x27;t clean it after using it?<p>There&#x27;s all kinds of problems with the borrowing and renting models.  People don&#x27;t take care of stuff they borrow&#x2F;rent (and some people don&#x27;t take care of their own stuff).  People don&#x27;t return it on time.  They break it.  And what kind of stuff can you borrow&#x2F;rent?  A lot of times, it&#x27;s substandard junk, or otherwise not up to your standards.  What if you want to rent a table saw instead of buying your own, but the only model available is some plastic piece of junk with horrible accuracy?  You might as well not even bother with a crappy saw like that if you&#x27;re trying to do any real woodworking.  This is typically the case with tool rentals: the tools they rent out are barely usable, and if they ever were, they&#x27;re so abused when you get them that it&#x27;s not worth the rental fee.  Better to just buy your own, so you can get something good, and with so little use it&#x27;ll stay in good shape for a long time, and be ready to use whenever you need it.  Sure, it means you have to haul around more stuff when you move, but it also means you can do a lot of things without going through a lot of logistical challenges, or having to pay a lot of money to rent stuff, of having to wait.<p>You said you have a bag of mountain-climbing gear you rarely use.  That stuff is, I presume, gear that <i>your life depends on</i>.  If a carabeener (sp?) fails, you can fall to your death, right?  Would you want to rent some ropes and other gear that you don&#x27;t know how it&#x27;s been treated or maintained, or could be some cheaply-made junk?  What are you going to do after you fall to your death when something breaks, sue the rental company?  And how much money would you actually save by renting this stuff instead of owning it anyway?