Rented Life
Life on-demand, delivered for instant gratification at a low cost and minimum commitment.
Today people choose to buy less and share more, "life as a service" is the evolving and sustainable solution to a world awash in information, apps, social networks, and technology.
Life as a service means having access to everything your life requires, such as health, education, employment, and finances, obtained on-demand instead of buying. It's a new way of getting services that are changing the way that society lives.
The age of ownership has gone. Thanks to technology and the younger generation who have embraced the new norm, it's much more comfortable than ever to get and pay for goods and services whenever they're needed or wanted via subscription-based models.
The "as-a-service" era is still in its infancy, but increasing due to the influx of on-demand services like Amazon and Netflix, people rethink their shopping approach, creating a new "future of living".
In a world where the cloud is slowly becoming the norm, offloading specific responsibilities to others who are more suitable is proving to be the way forward. The tide is beginning to turn away from ownership as people now prefer paying only for what they need when they need it. Freed from the burden of owning things, people are spending less, but they are also getting more.
Smart consumers understand that with the gig economy, they don't need to own their stuff anymore. Instead, the industry is evolving in a direction where they can access these goods and services as and when they want them on the Internet and pay for them only when they end up using them.
The Digital & Virtual Age - Future Living
It is no coincidence that the 'cloud era' brought us to the point where we can only think in terms of 'as-a-service.' Economies of scale and marginal IT costs, combined with ownership decoupling, allows for frictionless service models. We can see adopting the as-a-service model in many domains, especially in industries that benefit from digitization and have inherently high costs.
There are a plethora of as-a-service solutions and examples that we could highlight in this article. Here is a list of the most popular areas where the share-economy has replaced ownership:
Car share: Uber, Lift, ZipCar
Home/holiday rental: AirBnB, The collective
Coworking: WeWork, Starcity, ImpactHub
Computing: Cloud services
Bike: Boris Bikes (UK)
Clothing: Mud Jeans is offering their garments on a lease (Dutch Company). Once the items return, the company recycles them. Trunk Club,
Food: JustEat, Zomato, Deliveroo, Eat24
Entertainment: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Disney, etc
Work: Gig Economy, Virtual assistant, Virtual workforce, Zirtual,
Spirituality/Religion: Calm, Insight Timer, and many other meditation apps
Health: GP on Demand, remote health
One of the most significant advantages of a subscription model is predictability. If you have regular customers, it's much easier to sell them a subscription than it is to sell them every single product individually. Furthermore, with a subscription model, customers know what they're getting and exactly when which helps them feel better about their purchase.
Then there is the economic reality: companies using this model are out-performing their rivals by impressive amounts. In addition to the advantages of an online store, open-source e-commerce platforms are reasonably priced and installed for free with a few clicks of the mouse. And when it comes to simplicity, they're miles ahead of massive, highly customizable, and expensive systems designed for brick-and-mortar stores only.
Life is what you make of it
What if you can rent your lifestyle just like how you might rent or purchase a new car? What if your lifestyle can be one committed to more than just owning things? What if a culture can be one driven towards sustainability by sharing experiences?
The lifestyle you want is a service, not just a product. There's no question about it: we're living in the age of the collaborative economy. Like the appliances or architecture that came before it, everything can be delivered and kept on-demand. What does that mean, exactly?
It means your life can be assembled via an on-demand service, rather than having to purchase or invest in it.
Times have changed; once upon a time, we used oil lamps and quill pens, now we regularly access information and support through various remote services (like cloud computing). We have offloaded many of life's most basic tasks to centralized services and resources (think: your car).
Technology has infiltrated every facet of our lives. We use it to monitor both our business and ourselves. We use data and analysis to track our progress, from healthcare to spirituality.
The world is continuously expanding. New technologies are intricately woven into our lives and businesses. From drones to smoke detectors, the latest innovation is available when and where we need it. It's not hard to remember when you left your house without your smartphone, but it is easy to forget how much of our life can be influenced by our phones and apps for location, health, and fitness monitoring.
Life as a Service
Technology has altered every aspect of our lives, but the most significant change has been our lifestyle. We have become more comfortable with technology and the whole world around us.
We use technology to help us monitor both our business and our lives.
We use data and analysis to track our progress, from healthcare to spirituality.
When on the go, technology can add a layer of protection with GEO location and alarms.
Technology, coupled with AI, IoT, robotics, and AR/VR, has irreversibly changed how we work, live, and perform. Our lives have become prescriptive, scripted, and predictive, yet a lot safer.
Technology has made our lives easier and more efficient, but it has also made them less close to "living" and more to "serving". Technology has changed our lives. It will continue to change our lives, but it's important to remember that technology is not replacing us. It's enabling us to live better, more prosperous, and more fulfilling lives.
Nassia Skoulikariti
Founder/CEO Apiro Data Ltd
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