10,000 Brilliant Ideas

Companies have no incentive to make their products last particularly long. Of course they have the incentive to make their products last as short as possible without customers believing they are of lower quality or too environmentally irresponsible. Is there some way to reverse this by having an insurance scheme type approach where, let's say you pay into a yearly membership for, I dunno, cleaning sponges. You pay your yearly dues and whenever your sponge gets stinky or wears out, you pay a small amount (representing a loss for the company/manufacturer) for a new one. Thus, the company/manufacturer's incentive is to have their sponges last as long as possible and help you the consumer make the item last as long as possible. But then, we all like new stuff, right? True. See this idea . Perhaps there's a way to hibridize these ideas. Hmmmmmm.

Who doesn't love new stuff? Ever since your first day of school when you had brand new shoes, a new shirt and pair of pants, a new spiderman belt with a magnet (well I did anyway) and even new socks and underwear - you love being in new stuff. So instead of getting something new occasionally and then wearing it to the ground or disposing of things willy-nilly, you can join the new-stuff club. It works like this. - You pay your dues (of course) - You get a catalogue and pick out the new things you want - On a pre-determined schedule you receive a notice that you can now pick out a new one of the item you got. - A robot or something comes and picks up the old one and leaves you with the new one. - The old one is re-sold The pre-determined time would be based on optimum re-sale possibilities. This could even work like a charity where your used products are given away or sold to the poor for cheap. I think some people do this anyway, but why not formalize and officialize the ...