IMO it's the twin problems of the relatively high price of labor here, and the relatively low price of labor elsewhere. E.g., I don't want to accumulate a ton of stuff, but an entire pipe sweating kit that I might use once or twice a year costs less than one ten minute visit from a plumber. (multiply by every single other trade applied around the house)
As a homeowner, I completely relate to this. Every single task around the house requires "stuff" that you may or may not ever use again. That is of course unless you pay $100+ an hour for a contractor, and that's IF (and big if) they are even willing to show up for a small simplistic job. Many contractors worth their salt are only interested in larger jobs that are more profitable. Good luck finding someone to do handyman work.
It’s too bad tool-banks (communal or otherwise) aren’t too popular. One alternative (for seldom used things) is renting tools from home improvement centers/large hardware stores. Even auto parts stores have rentals or loaners for a deposit programs.
I've rented tools from Home Depot and regretted it. The prices they charge are sufficiently high that you're typically better off buying instead of renting if you think you're ever going to use that tool again at all. Or, even cheaper still, is buying the relevant tool used off Craigslist, in which case you can generally use it for free, and sell it back for what you paid for it if you don't end up needing it again.
I sometimes wonder what percentage of a piece of green land between houses is taken up by fences and garden sheds. We'd all get so much free space back if there was a communal shed. Problem is, you have one sunny Saturday then everyone wants the spade. (Writing from perspective of terraced houses in Britain.)
An almost equivalent model to renting is buy used/sell used. Because they biggest value loss of anything new happens during unboxing, the average loss between buying used and selling used is the transaction cost plus an approximation of actual wear and breakage. You won't get charged for not returning by this-and-that date.
Of course, if you are a tool hoarder like me you won't ever get further than buy used, but I guess that would still be "less stuff" than buying new.
On a related note, my favorite business that does not exist would be a chain of second hand stores that deals in all that "beach vacation crap" (inflatable rubber things, objects to enjoy and/or deal with sand/wind/sun etc) that tends to get hauled home just to die silently in an attic. It would absolutely have to be a chain to make experience transferable between destinations.
It doesn't have to be complex to be useful. I had a small plumbing project, needed a pex crimper. My local plumbing store will loan it to you for free if you buy the parts there. There is no schedule, no set time to return it. If it is there, you can have it. If not, you can wait, they will call you when it comes in.
Ah, the wonder of old-fashioned hardware (etc) stores. I bet your local store could not only lend you the tool but also give you useful advice on using it, or on your project in general.
What a loss to our communities as online retail drives them out of business. If I can get my supplies from Amazon for 20% less, but then have to buy the tool that I could have borrowed from the local store, and spend twice as long doing the job because I didn't talk it over with the experienced guy behind the counter, have I really come out ahead?
All the chain car parts stores rent all the specialized tools they sell. You put down the cost to buy the tool and get your money back when you return it.
Yeah, it doesn't take me long to decide to Amazon a replacement valve, 2 pipe wrenches, tape and dope for less than half what it costs for a plumber to walk through the door. I haven't used those pipe wrenches since then.
Ugh, I have a watch vise for exactly this reason (replacing batteries on my snapback watch). It was something like $16 on Amazon, and will pay for itself within five years from me not having to pay much inflated prices to have a jeweler replace my watch's battery (and crucially, will save me a lot of time going to and from the reasonably priced watch repair places in Chinatown).
When you say it will pay for itself, are you including the soft cost of storage? It may seem negligible, but if you applied that logic to every item you use only once per year, the cost becomes apparent. It's hard to measure, but it's real.
The amount of stuff I have has never led me to rent a larger apartment than I otherwise would've, so it seems like the marginal cost of more stuff is zero for me, at least for now? It's not like I'm renting additional storage space or anything (which is an option in the basement of my apartment building, but that certainly wouldn't be worth it).
All the extra tools, parts, and such that I have fit into two normal sized moving boxes, which can easily be stuffed under the bed or take up a shelf in a closet.
I have more of a problem with books than I do with tools and parts.
