I have so much house maintenance stuff. For example, I only really need a ladder once a year. But I keep it around forever because when you need a ladder, you need a ladder.

I would love to not have to store and maintain all this stuff and to just request it on demand. Can someone solve that for me?

I'm embarrassed to admit that sometimes it's easier for me to just buy a new tool than to find the right one at the bottom of a tool box somewhere. It seems so wasteful...

Same goes for all my hobby stuff too. (I too have a huge bag of mountain climbing gear that gets used only twice a year.)

You might be on to something if you find an easy way for people to publish their inventory of stuff to a trusted group of neighbors, maybe with a smartphone app to take pics of the gear? That way you leverage the trust that already exists, and just make the publishing and discovery process easier.

We use Nextdoor and our street's email mailing list for this all the time.

EDIT: Nextdoor and email lists only provide the in-group communication solution, not the inventory solution. It would be interesting to see an inventory solution that worked with a variety of communication services.

But you know what, we actually have a highly efficient system for transporting packages from people's houses, it's called the trash and recycling network. I wonder if there's an opportunity there to leverage this network... Imagine if returning something was as easy as wrapping it in a special plastic bag and then throwing it in your recycle bin. On the truck, special sensors would detect the presence of the bag and shunt it to a separate storage area of the truck and, from the depot, it would be placed in the conventional mail stream and sent to where it needed to be.

Probably crazy unworkable but fun to think about :).

Harbor Freight is great for hand tools you'll use occasionally, or power tools you'll use rarely. There's a reason people who use those tools for a living shop elsewhere.

Yeah, if I were a professional, I wouldn't use HF power tools either. But we're talking about DIYers here, not pros. And even good-quality name-brand tools from Lowe's/HD are a better value than renting.

The only place I can see where renting a tool makes sense is for something pretty large, that costs at least $500. For instance, a ditch digger is something I would rent, not buy: it's big, needs maintenance, and probably costs several thousand dollars new. And it's not something I'd need to use much, probably only once. But power tool that costs $80? Just buy it. I'll come out way ahead buying it, using it, and then reselling it on Craigslist than renting it.

I have HF power tools, but there's something slightly off about each of them, whether that's a flimsy plastic body, a saw blade arbor that moves around, or whatever. I don't use any of them on even a monthly basis. If I did, I would upgrade. Everything my brother has borrowed for a job has quickly failed. He doesn't buy much at Harbor Freight.

I have a Craftsman cordless drill that has lasted forever; it predates the tiny b&w Makita drills all the contractors have been using for years now. Since the battery is old-fashioned dry cell rather than lithium, I just took it to Ellis Battery for a rebuild when it failed.

The HF socket wrenches and sockets I've used have been at least as good as any Craftsman competitor, even from over 20 years ago.

However, for chisels, if you're talking about for woodworking, that's something I doubt I would buy from HF. For proper woodworking, chisels have to be incredibly sharp and hold an edge, and that requires high-quality steel. I guess if you're just installing some door latch plates a HF chisel might be OK though, but I'd get something nice for doing any serious woodworking because having really sharp chisels is critical for quality work.

http://sharesy.co

(I'm hardly a Luddite; rather, I think there's a lack of appreciation for basic interpersonal communication as a powerful technology in its own right.)

I don't remember where, but in recent memory I saw an article about an apartment building where residents would mark their doors with icons representing appliances/tools they were willing to share - a simple solution for an easily solved problem. (See also: rideshare boards on campuses, bulletin boards and flyers in local shops, local community centers, etc.)

Actually there is a sorta famous example of a startup that tried to do just that -- or close, they tried to build a social site for people to easily borrow whatever (ladder, chainsaw, etc) from other people in their area.

Turns out, most people said it was a great idea and encouraged them, and they even got lots of signups, but people really don't like dealing with strangers for such things, and nobody used the service in practice.

A, found it:

>There was just one problem. As Adam Berk, the founder of Neighborrow, puts it: "Everything made sense except that nobody gives a shit. They go buy [a drill]. Or they just bang a screwdriver through the wall."

http://www.fastcompany.com/3050775/the-sharing-economy-is-de...

and

http://entrepreneurship.org/resource-center/lessons-from-fai...

Ah, the good old realities of consumer marketing.

What I want is a delivery version. I'd pay $xx/month for access to tools and other household items I rarely need along with $x per delivery and pickup to not have to go get them.

Plus, the rental company is undoubtedly going to charge you jacked-up late fees when it turns out you don't get your project done on time and need to keep the tool for another day.

When it's so cheap to just go buy a workable tool from Harbor Freight, or a really nice tool from Home Depot, why bother renting some beat-up, abused, crappy tool from a rental place? On top of that, when I need a tool for something, I sure as hell don't want to sign up and have to wait a week for it, I need it now to fix something. I may not use it often, but when I do need it, it's invaluable to have it immediately ready to use.

That said, I do think there's something off about my accounting. I live in SF - the tool may cost X dollars, but what's the yearly rent on the square footage that the tool occupies? Just to sit there unused 99% of the time.

I'm starting to rent things not because it's cheaper but because I'm beginning to understand the psychological effects of having too much clutter in a relatively small house.

But yeah, renting is really expensive with all kinds of little gotchas, and it's a surprising hassle, too. Almost as much of a hassle as having a lot of clutter around.

This reminded me of a startup idea that I have, I think one of the biggest items that could be rented out would be generators. Right before a storm hits deliver the generator and once power is back up, pick them up.

Maybe you could hire an Uber or a Task Rabbit to go pick up your tool.

So it was always getting it from a friend or a friend of a friend.

Consequently there were many cases where relationships would get tense because of late/non-returns.

I'm suspicious that an own-in-common club or organization would end up asking me to pay too much for old stuff. It'd be hard to avoid - they'd want to depreciate it all or whatever. A hard startup to invent.

No, these tents probably won't hold up well with careless renters who don't care about taking care of stuff and abuse stuff. So why should I pay the same amount as a brand-new nylon test for some crappy old canvas tent with mold, which weighs 10 times as much, just so I don't have to own a tent? It makes no sense at all. I'd rather have a nice, clean tent that I own, and I can grab any time someone wants to go camping with me. Tents don't take up that much space when folded up. And even if the Walmart tent only lasts 3 trips, you'll still be saving money over the crappy rental tent.

Oh! I see - yes those tents were fragile and high-tech and would have probably lasted less long in general use. So that's part of the problem - rental to the public is hard on equipment. Again, its hard to see a startup model here that would work.

    > I wish there was a startup in this space.

You can hire tools, protective clothing, etc. from many DIY/trade stores.

https://www.beomni.com/

I have re-bought tools/parts I was fairly certain I already had, but simply did not have the time to sift through things to find. Especially for home projects that I had a small window to work on and I did not do my due diligence ahead of time to look for them.

http://www.homedepot.com/c/painting_and_wall_equipment_renta...

They do. I rented one several months ago to change some can lights on a 15' ceiling. They have basic power tools as well, though the selection is spotty from store to store.

Need a middleman "broker" with accurate local data and up to the minute stocking data. There's two "close" home depots and a local lumberyard with rentals and a regional contractor supply and a local contractor supply. Which of those five rental agencies has a stump grinder for rent tonight? Check back with me in 30 minutes. Would be nice to have an app that could tell me instantly...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich#Tools_for_Convivia...

Dougald Hine had a great talk I saw on Vimeo, I believe (it was ~7 years ago), where he went in depth on Ivan Illich's life and work, and he also mentioned how monks used to keep books hidden in nooks and crannies spread about, and they shared their locations and movements with one another in a p2p fashion after hiding them, using them, and getting more info about them and their users.

Also, before couchsurfing.whatever, I head from a very early adopter, that in his youth, his community kept notebooks of who had a couch, where, and how to reach them. Then you could find hosts with the same algorithm as a DHT-like PageRank kinda thing (friend of a friend of a very good friend... said ___; is it true, can we ___?).

So, I guess that for Derek (and other people who already have what they need and have comfort in life), a good gift from these people he mentioned would rather go to someone else, directly, who he would in some way see a benefit, indirectly or very indirectly.

Tools, for instance: if something breaks in your house, you need a tool right now if you want to fix it. Your toilet stops up? You need a plunger, NOW. You sure as hell don'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's plunger? What if they didn't clean it after using it?

There's all kinds of problems with the borrowing and renting models. People don't take care of stuff they borrow/rent (and some people don't take care of their own stuff). People don't return it on time. They break it. And what kind of stuff can you borrow/rent? A lot of times, it'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'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're so abused when you get them that it's not worth the rental fee. Better to just buy your own, so you can get something good, and with so little use it'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.

You said you have a bag of mountain-climbing gear you rarely use. That stuff is, I presume, gear that your life depends on. 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't know how it'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?

Although I can't help you out with the ladder problem. My company is working to help people like yourself live more and own less, with experiences and services to fuel your lifestyle.

Eventually, we may move into the problem you described of renting out gear that you may only use once or twice a year. Which was the main problem, when me and my roommate were staring at a very expensive kiteboard and mountain bike that was just collecting dust, and never getting used. So I feel your pain on that note.

To start with we are offering a range of products and experiences which you never have to think about owning (or collecting dust) Some of these include - skiing, golf, camping and tennis.

We are launching March 10th in San Fransisco, and Bay Area. If you are outside of this, you will be the first to know when we expand to your area, and you can always download the app for free- this is us - http://share-hub.launchrock.com/ Sorry can't solve your problem right now. Hopefully one day we can :)

Give me a "house improvement standard kit" and a well thought-out place to store it. A well-organized compartment, decent-quality tools that actually make sense, some extendability, and make it take up no space space at all whenever I don't need it. Charge $1000 (€1000) for it, and everybody will buy it along with their house once you've built a brand.

I can't think of any other way to efficiently and cost-effectively handle this.

There are so many tools that I own, that I really only need once in a blue moon. I would totally buy a subscription to a facility that allowed me access to these kinds of tools.

There are probably a lot of legal implications with renting power tools out to the public. But I still think it would be awesome.

http://www.techshop.ws/tools_and_equipment.html

We were discussing just this at a Cleanweb event last night.

On third thought, maybe Amazon could just do this ...

http://us.zilok.com/

Now, with virtual pinball, people are starting to encounter the same issue. I bought a real pinball machine recently and plan on squeezing another into my home eventually because the virtual machines simply don't feel the same. At the same time, I setup a virtual machine with 50-plus tables on it that I perpetually tinker with and try to improve with custom controls, larger screens, and eventually digital back-glass.

We have to take it on a case-by-case basis. I remember when Marvel started reprinting and digitizing all their old comics in early 2000. Issues in my collection went from $100-$200 to $10-$20 in value very quikly. I hang those old issues on my walls as art, but when I want to read them, I go to my tablet.

Also, if you can keep the stuff for a hobby together on a storage bin is easier to put away when you loose interest and bring it back when you want to do it again.

>I’m not saying anyone else should be this way. Back when I was a full-time musician, I had a whole recording studio full of stuff. But these days, everything I want to do is on my laptop. If I had a different hobby, I’d have a different situation.

Of course, gifts in the $300+ range are relatively rare, so most musicians won't usually have to worry about someone getting them the wrong, but high enough quality you can't return it, item.

The music instrument market is weirder now and uses cost as a race and class filter to keep the wrong people out. Collecting $25K for a conservatory class instrument in gift certificates in 2016 is a bit unreasonable, but "in the old days" they gave out scholarships based on ability and didn't use the art as a filter on finances, race, and class like they filter for today. Even today you could collect enough gift certs to get an instrument for the joy of music and learning, just not to get a scholarship.

Wow. Considering you can get a perfectly functional violin for around $100 on Amazon (there's a great YouTube video where a professional violinist picked one up to trash it and ended up recommending it), $25,000 is a lot of money for an instrument.

If you observe the amount of things people throws away when moving to a new house, you'll realize that how many things are needlessly accumulated. You can bet that the same things were really needed before buying them.

I'd say that the most minimal application of minimalism (this is the idea of the post) is to recognize in advance that one don't really need them.

Expanding the concept of minimalism, I wouldn't say you don't need much of the stuff you're mentioning, rather that a minimalist "clone" of you could enjoy and/or perform (depending on the goals) the activities you've mentioned, with probably half of the equipment.

Besides, there are only the two extremes of having plenty of tools, and living only with a laptop and furnishing.

People clearly have different thresholds for too much stuff, but there is one universal indicator for when you definitely you have too much stuff: You have too much stuff if you can't "put everything away".

By "put everything away" I mean be able to put everything away and then later find it without rummaging or unpacking boxes. It means having tables with nothing but permanent fixtures on them and shelves where everything is visible at a glance. It means, often, that getting new stuff means discarding old stuff to make room.

It takes a long time to get to that point, but it looks great and inspires creativity.

Lots of tools exist only to facilitate a very specific task and can be replaced by a less specialized one. Its not always as efficient but most of the time its enough. A knife can peel, mince, cut, etc. It can easily replace lots of 'stuff' in the kitchen.

99% of the time, people buy tools when they have a need for them.

There are a few programming and writing projects that I've been wanting to finish for years.

So when I look at a new hobby or interest, like the ones you describe above, I think, “Ah... sounds fun... some day... But first I have to finish what I've started.” Not having the stuff around helps keep me focused.

The pain of not finishing my existing projects is greater than the pleasure I'd get from the new hobby.

(FWIW, the few things I own include the hiking gear you describe.)

Some people live ostensibly fulfilling lives owning nothing but a robe and a bowl.

Tea drinker -> Three different tea sets, which get used variously depending on what kind of tea I am drinking.

baker -> An entire kitchen full of tools.

Perhaps I'm taking the article too literally, but if he really only has the things that came with his apartment, so clothes, a laptop, and headphones, he really can't do most of the things on your list, at least not at any kind of level beyond the most casual.

To start off my minimalist college years, my mother brought me to the local Goodwill where I bought one fork, one knife, one spoon, one bowl, etc. Had to add chopsticks to get a really complete eating set, but these got me off to a good start. Even this minimalist set (chopsticks, knife, spoon, bowl, wooden mixing spoon, pot) require space, and they don't allow you to bake cookies (need a baking sheet!). I was nowhere near homeless though I could fit all my belongings into one room as wide as the length of a twin bed.

Sivers knows that if he wants to make pastries, he can buy or borrow pastry-making equipment -- just as I can. So he doesn't need to keep it around. Those with little by necessity rather than choice don't have that confidence.

Not wanting stuff is for people who have access the stuff they need.

So not to be argumentative or anything, but beyond clothes and a pair of swim shorts, the only things you need to do everything on my list, and that wouldn't be found in a typical furnished home, are: a decent pen, a deck of cards, and some oranges...

The same applies to a bunch of the rest of hobbies that you mentioned. If you only care about doing something superficially, then sure, you don't need equipment. But to do something well? For example, making good podcasts requires a full setup of audio engineering equipment -- mics, mic stands, various digital audio equipment that plugs into a computer, etc. Similar for running; the people I know that are really into it have all sorts of shoes, GPS running watches, entire wardrobes of running gear (which you NEED to prevent chafing), reflective clothing, heart rate monitors, travel gear to bring with you when traveling for races; the list goes on.

I've been into a bunch of hobbies in my life and every single one ended up accumulating significant amounts of gear. Even just being into programming or gaming, I've ended up with various mechanical keyboards, mice, computers, computer parts, displays, and more.

But I'm a little surprised that people continue to insist that no, one really needs lots of stuff.

It's just not true that you need a huge variety of stuff for over $1,000 to bake bread. Think about it. The history of bread goes back thirty thousand years. You don't need a cupcake tray. You don't even need a baguette pan to make decent baguettes. I'm not making this up: I baked bread nearly every day for months using nothing special.

With podcasts, I again resist the idea that to go beyond "superficial" you need anything except a phone. I've recorded audio on my iPhone lots of times. In a quiet room, it works fine. There are plenty of very serious podcasts with people who participate by phone, and that's just fine.

Again with running. Nope, you don't need that stuff. How did people run a hundred thousand years ago? It's a fundamental bodily function. I have a pair of Merrell Trail Gloves that I also use as walking shoes in the summer, and they're just fine for running, and no other equipment is necessary at all.

I program just fine with just a laptop.

Again—it's all just preference and availability. But you can't say that everyone needs this stuff, because they don't. And I resist the notion because I think it can prevent people from getting started with the stuff they actually have.

"You don't need a guitar to make music, because people once made music by banging two sticks together". I mean, the GP even specifically mentioned pie tins, cake containers, cupcake trays, and you retort with "baking is nothing but bread"? "You don't need stuff, because a simplified subset of what you want to do can be done without stuff"? Hell, you don't even need a hammer to drive a nail, but it's a lot more efficient if you have one.

It's doubly weird that you invoke how people ran 100k years ago, and then say "all you need are shoes". Nope - it's "no footwear". It's perfectly doable - I had an anarchist friend who spent several years without wearing shoes (excluding when he had to - boots for protection when motorcycle riding). You should ditch the shoes in your example, for both running and walking, as shoes are just as unnecessary to human locomotion as $1k of kitchenware is to baking. There's even a subgenre of running that is specifically about no shoes; I'm not aware of a subgenre of baking that is specifically about making cakes with no mixer.

I do go barefoot a lot when it's warm enough. Running, too. So, yeah, if the climate allows, you don't even need shoes. How nice!

Some of the more esoteric hobbies I've gotten into have included amateur telescope making, ham radio, long-range precision reloading, and shed construction, all of which are very tool-dependent. The more and better tools you have, the more capable you are in the hobby, the better your results, and the more satisfying it is. Sure, some hobbies are more amenable to getting farther along in them with having less stuff, but that doesn't help you if you end up interested in something that is tool-dependent.

I'm in a position similar to Sivers, in that I don't have a permanent home, and I'm unlikely to find one in the near future. Like him I'm in a furnished apartment with barely any stuff of my own save for clothes, a laptop, a phone, a kindle, and a handful of other belongings. Some days I really yearn for a place of my own, and the things I could have in there...

But when I read someone saying they cannot wrap their head around how anyone could be fulfilled with living like Sivers... I feel obliged to respond. This is how my life is, and it's fine, I'm quite happy.

I play music with my friends in a rental rehearsal space, I meditate, I take photos with my phone, I code on my laptop, I discuss things, I read, all those things I listed. It's not some awful deprived life of poverty just because I don't have several bags of camera equipment!

If you are just baking bread sure, you could do that with minimal equipment. But if you want to bake a cake, you need a cake tin, scales etc. If you wanted a really fancy cake...

If you want to run around the park, sure, pair of sneakers. I know ultra marathoners. When they enter a race they are given a checklist that they must have on race day. They have all sorts of gear to help them train. Not to mention the travel gear they need to get to the location their race is in.

I have watched a professional baker make several high end cakes and she used very few specialized tools. The icing/Pastry bag was really the only non standard cooking item.

Remember, people want to sell you stuff. That does not make stuff necessary.

Now your box of liners consumes the space that your cake tin would, and you haven't changed anything.

My biggest hobby these days is gaming on my PC, it's incredibly cheap and stuff-minimal compared to other hobbies like skiing. I'm using a moderately powerful PC build from 2009 and updated my GPU a few years ago, still runs a lot of or even most new games on high settings. Occasionally I appreciate a good hike, and my brother got me a nice backpack and poles last year that I haven't used yet... because I've been hiking since I was a kid with no equipment but a bottle of water and maybe some bars (I do have hiking boots but I've gone hiking in my regular tennis shoes too) so I've forgotten it the last few times I've gone out. It's become just functionally another item in my stuff that I don't actually need, though when I do eventually remember it I'm sure it'll be convenient. Just like my external monitor for my work laptop is convenient, but not necessary. And so on.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTUxoNSiUQA

I'm inclined to want to do things with less stuff rather than more stuff. Sure, I wouldn't mind a villa full of studio equipment and musical instruments, but I also love to make music with just a ukulele and my voice—that's good practice, too. And you don't even need the uke. These guys are doing pretty well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SMJXf0jvRc

Maybe I'll sound pretentious but I like to make programs kind of the way that guy makes boats. Look at the fundamental tools available, see how to glue things together in the most efficient way. Use the aspiration to stay minimal as a source of inspiration and a way to get past analysis paralysis.

If I buy a new video card, when I open the box its resale value instantly drops perhaps 50% of its price, and in perhaps two years its resale value is "you're gonna have to pay me to recycle that for you...". Money spent on computer hardware in 1981 dropped in value to $0 if not less by, perhaps, 1983. The experience is worthless, or negative worth, on your resume (trust me on that one) If you're a computer-person, money spent is money wasted, in the long run.

28 years ago I got a nice full set of fractional/number/letter drills in a Huot case. Instantly when I opened the package its value dropped from whatever it was sold for, to $10 at a garage sale. I get 28 years of use out of it, some are getting a little shorter from resharpening or have been replaced, and I could still get $10 at a garage sale. If I sold my drill bits to raise $10 today, I'd just have to rebuy them again in a month or two at full list price and eat the substantial depreciation a second time. Its not like my world is going to run out of things to make holes thru. I'm not wealthy enough to buy the same tools over and over; likewise I'm not wealthy enough to buy cheap tools that fall apart such that I have to buy them over and over. I'm not wealthy enough to rent things I use on a regular basis. Actually I am wealthy enough now, but character traits like this are exactly the cause of why I'm wealthy enough now. Minimization of total overall lifetime system cost. Nobody ever got rich by spending more money than is necessary.

Now multiply the set of drill bits by every other capital good / tool I own, and in some capital intensive hobbies it adds up. And there's really nothing wrong with that. That's how you end up with (old) carpenters having $30K shops like my accountant neighbor, or (old) bakers with $1K of gear, (old) ham radio operators with $10K radio stations... At least with some hobbies, not making dumb decisions adds up over time.

Also you mention doing a hobby "well." There is a big difference between competitive bike racing and biking an hour every day for fun and exercise. Is someone who is into competitive bike racing doing their hobby "well"? More so than someone who doesn't have the gear and wouldn't win the race?

Personally I try to think of my tools as investment, if I don't use it professionally I don't spend too much on it.

- Writing: Pens, Paper, Laptop - Walking: Shoes, Clothing (other than robe) - Music: iPod, Headphones - Reading: Comfortable chair - Drinking Tea: Teapot, china - Running: Specialized shoes and gear - Making Electronica: Synthesizers - Penmanship: Specialized quills and ink - Swimming: Swimsuit, goggles, towel

The list goes on, but I'd argue a lot of those DO require extra things (to do well or "right" at least).

"Most people" in first world countries hardly ever run.

The official statistics I've seen put "joggers and runners" as 17-18% of the US population, and their definition includes all the "people who went jogging or running within the last 12 months in the United States" -- so in reality, much much less, especially after school/college age. This makes those irrelevant for the 80% and more. In most first world countries, which don't share the US obsession with jogging, that's substantially less.

As for "Penmanship, quills and ink", that's not even a thing for the overwhelming majority of the population. At least not since 1950.

And "making electronica"? I happen to do that, but I can count on one hand the number of people I know who even know what Roland or Ableton are (apart from collaborators etc).

So, I'd hardly call this list representative -- if it said "urban hipster" maybe, but the "for most people" qualifier is totally bogus.

(Aside: very sad statistic on U.S. runners.)

Though one could argue (given the clarification you've made) that said XXers could also embrace a minimalist aesthetic.

E.g. electronica makers: do everything in the box, or with very few pieces of kit (minimal gear). Penmanship: just use a couple of really good pens and some select stationary. Etc -- and of course they can keep the "minimal stuff" in all other non XX areas of their lives.

Personally, I don't have much stuff, and I like it that way. But taken to its extreme, and I wouldn't be able to do my favorite things.

aka all hiking/ backpacking gear for a world tour can easily fit into a single backpack or fill a trailer.

Photography, 1 decent camera is really enough.

A single bike is actually fairly small. Start getting into road bikes, touring bikes, etc and they start taking up a lot of space.

DIY can take endless space, but you can get far with a single tool box. 'extra' is often more about saving time than really necessary.

PS: I good rule of thumb is if you have not used it in 2 years it's wasting space. But, IMO even better is if you have used it less than 3 times in a year it's fluff.

Bahahahahaahhahahah... no.

1 decent camera is enough if you are not a photographer, just a person who likes taking pictures.

As a very amateur photographer, I do in fact only own one camera. The rest of the two bags is accessories for that one camera and several lenses, each of which serve a unique and useful purpose. Good camera equipment is dammed expensive. If I could buy less of it and still do everything I want to do, you better believe I would! I don't even do very complicated photography. I shoot exclusively outdoors in relatively bright surroundings. There is a whole other realm of lighting equipment that I haven't even entered into yet.

And just for some perspective, it is not at all unusual for professional photographers to carry two cameras at the same time. (With different lenses, since it takes several seconds to swap a lens.)

And that doesn't get into specialty equipment like medium/full format.

My two small bags of equipment is nothing compared to the amount of gear that an experience professional photographer is likely to acquire over the course of a decade or two.

If only. I have several lenses for a variety of situations. A lighting rig for indoor shoots which includes bounces, tripods, umbrellas, cords and rigging. Then there's the tripod, plus a back pack for the smaller stuff. Not to mention backdrop equipment.

There's a big difference between casual hobby and serious hobby.

Consider, nobody says you need an electron microscope to get serious about photography, but they can take some amazing photos even without using photons...

Even professional photographers that only do a specific kind of photography professional nearly always have amateur interests in other photographic subjects that require different gear.

I have even known someone to go the other way and sell off there kit for a point and shoot. They where into candid photos so always having a camera was more important than fiddling with a massive beast.

Granted, camera's are cheap to most of the HN crowd, even blowing 30k over 20 years is just not a big deal. But, just because gear is 'cheap' and 'better' does not make it necessary.

A single lens camera is as limiting as only owning one size of screwdriver, or one knife.

(Reminds me of an aside, in that every single sport has very specialized gear (on purpose) now. You can't be caught dead wearing basketball shorts when cycling, even though they are just fine, outside the tour de france.)

But still, if you've got a big house there's no immediate need. It's when you have to move that you'll wish for less.

They deliver & pick up activity-specific gear. As others have said, not sure if there is enough of a market for it, but access code "nextdoor" if you want to give it a try