Renting Everything

Reason reports:

The emergence of new rental markets is also likely to exert a downward pressure on existing products and services. If the Web has taught us anything, it’s that consumers are quite generous in what they will tolerate if the price is right. The thousands of amateur hoteliers now offering couches and air mattresses in New York City and Paris for as low as $20 a night have the potential to undermine the prices that hotels charge in the same way that people who create content for free have changed the business model of Hollywood and the news industry. A space on the floor in someone’s living room flop house may not have all the amenities of Motel 6, but if it’s clean enough and safe enough and reliable enough to attract consumers on an ongoing basis, it will create competition for legacy hoteliers that will in turn create new waves of innovation and price reduction.

The celebration of deflation and capitalism.