Dear Brands,
I want an open relationship.
All my life, we’ve had a committed and dedicated relationship. You told me what to buy, I bought it, bought it again. But now, it’s about to change. I don’t want to buy from you directly, I want to rent, subscribe, and borrow your goods. If I end up buying your product, I want to use it with others to resell, rent to others, swap or lend.
It’s not you, it’s me.
Our world has changed, and along with it my preferences. From a more socially responsible mindset, economic pressures to be efficient, and how easy technology makes it for me to find other other consumers who can satisfy my needs.  Here’s how my behavior has changing:
I will use AirBnb to find vacation spots –rather than stay at hotels, I use Uber and Lyft to get around town rather than hire a traditional taxi, I just put my spare car on RelayRide to rent out to others, for my wife’s birthday, I bought her a subscription to Rent the Runway –rather than buying her a new dress.
At work, we’ve tapped into LiquidSpace to rent office space on demand, I use Taskrabbit to hire folks at the office rather than using traditional staffing models, we’ve bought refurbished laptops for our staff, and most of our software is already on demand.
Because of this, I’m more interesting in renting, subscribing, or borrowing products –rather than buying outright. If I do choose to buy a product, I want to make sure it has great re-sale value as I can sell it or rent it out and make money.
It also means that the relationship I have with other people matters. Now, I rent my car to on RelayRide or sell my used electronics on Gazelle the trusted relationships I have with other customers matters as much, if not more, than my relationship with you.
I still love you, but in a different way.
If you want to be in a relationship with me, recognize it’s not exclusive, what happens between us has changed. I need you to change as I want to rent, borrow, subscribe, co-op, and swap, –rather than buy.