So true. My fantasy company (please anyone start it) is "reverse-Amazon-prime"-- Remove anything from your house in 2 days. Then you have all the connections to a) sell and share the money back with me, b) donate it, or c) dispose of it responsibly. This would be so awesome done right with solid research into the best ways to do all of the above for a huge variety of stuff.

This is basically removalists, yes?

The last time I moved house, I paid a removalist to get rid of a bunch of my stuff. Paid them by volume of removed material; they did all the work to take the stuff away. (I basically said "take everything in that room over there"). Took a couple hours, and it was done.

They disposed of everything responsibly, and would try to sell things which were reusable or salvageable. The cost to me was dead cheap, because most of their profit (I assume) came from reselling the stuff that could be salvaged.

This was a thing about 10 years ago, maybe longer. Lots of stores started up that would list your stuff on eBay for a percentage of the price. That lasted for a year or so and all those stores closed up shop.

It's too bad because that seemed like a reasonable system: people would get to be proficient at pricing, describing and listing items on eBay and the sales price at a public auction seemed like a pretty accurate value for what something was "really worth".

My wife used to take things that our kids outgrew to resale shops. She still is able to take some things that we no longer use but was easier with kid stuff.

I assume it didn't really work for more or less the same reason it doesn't work for you or me to do it personally--the transaction cost in time and money is more than you can get for the item. Someone who specializes in that sort of thing can be better at it but it's still hard to make money selling a $10 item.

Mostly I just donate things these days to the Salvation Army or whatever. Unfortunately, not everything is really amenable to that. I have some items that I'm sure are worth something to someone but they're not worth my effort to sell on ebay and Craigslist is pretty thin out where I live.

I so wish it was easier to sell stuff :( ebay is a PITA, feels like everybody is trying to scam you. Wish there was ebay with like minded technical customers so I could drop battery cycles and hard drive smart status along with detailed product images (while running) and not have to deal with the "MY DAUGHTER IS GOING TO COLLEGE AND I'M PREPARED TO GIVE YOU 200% THE VALUE OF THING IF YOU SEND ME INVOICE AND MAIL TO A DIFFERENT ADDRESS"

It exists and is called Craigslist.

...and it funds journalism by sending drones to the Waffle House to workshop my ephemeral stuff while doing some mending and meeting other drones to trade, to share litecoin, or to fix up their rides; sometimes even tell whether a carrot is seeding true. They do mad backbeats and end up with tips.

The general amount of bs can be very high dealing on CL, even giving stuff away. From scammers and spammers, to the usual suspect who no shows after you rushed home from work to meet them in your free hour that day.

You're imagining people giving you perfectly fine things that just need to be dusted, and then someone would love to own them.

You'd get a load of garbage that people are too lazy to sell on Ebay, and too sentimental to throw out.

I dunno about that. If went thru everything I had took those things I didn't use in the last six months credo, I would have some perfectly good things left over. Camera lenses and other, camping equip, tools, non-seasonal clothes, etc.

I don't tend to keep useless things around as it is. I imagine there are quite a few people like that. I imagine at least in some strata of tech workers, who are into the latest and greatest, there are quite a few who'd have pretty decent things to recycle.

I've worked with people who just have too much disposable income as either singles or DINKs and buy/consume "accordingly."