ByeBuy Raises €1M To Make It Easier To Switch Gadgets

 German startup ByeBuy, which offers a pay-as-you-go and on-demand alternative to gadget ownership, has raised a €1 million seed round. Read More

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Our Summary

Increasingly, we are turning away from ownership of things. Instead, we pay for their use on a limited basis. We use services like Netflix, Spotify, Uber. 

A new service called ByeBuy intends to extend this model to the very devices we use and carry with us every day, offering unlimited rentals of things like iPhones, gaming consoles and wearable tech. 

ByeBuy customers will send requests for the devices they want and pay a flexible subscription fee that costs dramatically less than the purchase price. The customer keeps the device as long as they care to, returning it when they no longer want it. Should they wish to purchase the item, part of the subscription fee is applied to that payment. 

The Key Takeaway

Innovation cycles are expediting every year--while it took Nintendo seven years to upgrade, new iPhones are released yearly. Amazing new tech is released all the time, and to keep up with that innovation, a user would need to be constantly engaged in buying and selling, taking into account large time investments, uneven cash swings, and a lot of risk and unsustainability in the consumption pattern. Consumers want access, not ownership. We want to enjoy all the cool tech, but we don’t necessarily need to own it to enjoy it.

We are observing a shift in behavioral change. People tend to lean towards accessing things more than owning them. We want the service, not the object. We want what we want, and we want to get it now for as long as we enjoy it. If we don't want it anymore, we just want to end the service. 

Read the entire article here.

ByeBuy Offers Alternative To Gadget Ownership With On-Demand, Pay-As-You-Go Model

 If there is one product category that is arguably crying out for a bit of so-called collaborative consumption, it’s the latest gadgets. If only to slow down the rate of landfill or save us from the time-consuming and painful process of ‘recycling’ last year’s tech purchases on eBay. Enter German startup ByeBuy. The Seedcamp-backed company is bringing a pay-as-you-go… Read More

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