[nickconfer]

This seems like a difficult business to execute on.

1) You need capital to buy the machines to give out and slowly collect $60 on. Once the capital runs out, more is needed, but without getting capital quick enough, new customers have to be turned down, growth slows, and capital becomes even more difficult to acquire.

2) Since the tech and product can be easily purchased by anyone, there is room for other businesses to enter the space quickly and drive a pricing war. If large chains got involved they could offer a lower price and push local same day service.

3) Machines break. Without a hassle-free return / warranty, customers will likely get frustrated, refuse to pay, and make collections very difficult.

Not to say it can't be done, the leasing industry is fairly large, but I'd thought I'd share my thoughts on the problems that might arise. Reminds me of when they did PCs for 19.95 a month plus internet for a contract term.

[auctiontheory]

You need capital to buy the machines to give out and slowly collect $60 on

That is a very generic argument that applies to (against) any leasing business - but clearly many such businesses exist, across many industries.

[bradleyland]

There are much bigger, fundamental problems with the computer rental business. Key amongst them is the selection bias involved with "renting" anything with a relatively low purchase value.

While consumers frequently make poor financial decisions, most are able to identify that renting is going to be more expensive over the long run, thus consumers prefer to buy outright, or to use credit financing that results in ownership, even if the terms of said financing are poor (e.g., using a credit card to buy a laptop). In a given population of consumers, the ones that are going to choose the rent option either do not have the credit available to use the finance-to-buy option, or simply don't have the means to make the payment that would be required with traditional financing.

I worked for a rent-to-own company (Curtis Mathes) in the 90's, so I have some experience in the space. Overwhelmingly, Curtis Mathes' customers were people who could not get credit otherwise. They couldn't get credit otherwise because they made devastatingly bad financial decisions. When you rent low-dollar items like $1,000 living room sets, this is the customer you get. Renting MacBooks is frighteningly familiar.

If I were Technichi, this is the ball I'd keep my eye on. Curtis Mathes faced tremendous challenges that non-rent-to-own companies only see as a small blip. For example, one of the biggest problems at our location was first-payment-default. A customer would take home a full set of furniture on a promotion such as "$1 pays your first week's rent", then never make another payment. Delivery staff would pick up the furniture, which would often go straight in to the dumpster because the delinquent customer had trashed it.

When you cater to the "Oh, I can afford $XX a month!" crowd, these are the problems you have to solve.

[techwatching]

In regards to (1), they can lease/finance them. As long as the $60 includes enough gross margin, and as long as they have enough borrowing capacity, they don't need $2000 * X laptops to start up.

Seems like a good relationship with their financing partner would be key.

[dman]

In your opinion what is the difference between leasing a computer and leasing a car?

[al2o3cr]

Off the cuff, cars cost 10x as much and aren't obsoleted by better cars that drive 3x as fast after two years...

[silverlake]

Nor do laptops anymore.

[dragontamer]

A $300 Dell Venue 8 Pro Intel Atom tablet is faster than a Macbook Pro of 4 years ago.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7263/intel-teases-baytrail-per...

[bananas]

Nope.

That's a Core 2 at 1.86 GHz in a MacBook Air which is technically pants.

My 2011 2.7GHz i7-2620M MBP would destroy that in a second.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Z3770-vs-Intel-Core-i7-2620M

[dragontamer]

And what a difference that 18-months makes in the line of computing, right?

Lets take a look at the Macbook Pro of 2010. http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Z3770-vs-Intel-Core2-Duo-P8600

Either way, progress marches forward rather significantly.

[mschaecher]

A brand new kia or scion is gonna be faster out the gate and cheaper than a 4 year old cadillac.

But the cadillac wins on looks, power, durability, safety, fuel, utility, terrain/environmental performance, can hold more people and those new cars won't have interiors half as nice on their new models 4 years from now as today's 4 year old cadillac model does.

Oh and if the race is longer than 30-40 yards that caddie will catch up and smoke those cars with it's V8.

tl;dr apples to oranges and all that shit

[Fomite]

For the record, since I do computational research work on a machine with an SSD, almost everything I do feels faster on a more modern machine.

[spicyj]

Computers are getting cheaper, but the high end isn't improving much over time.

[dragontamer]

DDR4 is around the corner, PCIe SSDs are as well.

But the real improvement is battery life. Intel Haswell machines are lasting 10 to 16 hours now, and this number will only improve as Intel moves to 14nm and 10nm designs.

EDIT: Woops, I mean 22-hours. http://blog.gsmarena.com/toshiba-squeezes-22-hour-battery-li...

Computers aren't getting faster because no one cares about that. The majority of the design effort is now into battery life. A Dell Venue 8 Pro lasts 8+ hours on a single charge, on a tiny 20Whr battery (while being faster than the 4-year-old Macbook Pro). The 4-year-old Core2Duo Macbook Pros lasted only a couple of hours on behemoth 60Whr batteries.

Battery efficiency will matter when it comes down to lightness and style. Better battery efficiency will lead to thinner, sleeker, lighter designs. Generally speaking, the "progress" of modern computers is battery efficiency, leading to smaller batteries, leading to lighter and smaller computers.

[sscalia]

Doesn't matter. Does Photoshop feel measurably faster on a 4 year old Macbook Pro vs. a new one? Does email? Does web browsing?

Minus some spergy cases (PC gaming, 3d rendering, virtualization, etc) most computers are just fine for everyday tasks for a long while.

[dragontamer]

Then get the $300 Asus Vivotab Note, instead of spending $60/month on a lease on a new laptop. Within 6 months, you'll have made your money back and then some (Especially since the $300 tablet can do everything a 4-year-old computer can do, while having superior battery life, significantly less weight, support of a Wacom Active Stylus and a touchscreen)

Yes, I have run Photoshop and Gimp on a $300 Baytrail Tablet. Yes, they work. I can personally verify that fact. On the other hand, I do notice significant performance increases when comparing these cheap, tiny computers against my beefy Desktop. Regardless, I speak from experience.

Benchmarks do not lie however, these $300 Baytrail tablets are faster than Macbook Pros from 4 years ago.

Regardless of how you slice it, computers depreciate significantly faster than cars. For those where "just enough" performance is good enough, you might as well buy these modern $300 netbooks / tablets than lease a top-of-the-line laptop for $60/month... unless you really throw away your laptops after less than 5 months of usage.

A brand new cheap computer is better than a top-of-the-line computer from 4 years ago. And for those who are chasing the top end, modern premium computers are released too often for this lease business model to make sense IMO.

[auctiontheory]

You were downvoted for saying exactly what I was about to say: for most consumer use, my 2009 MBP does everything I need. It beats me at chess. A/V transcoding could be faster, but that's really an edge use case for me, and probably most people, even on HN.

What I do care about is ergonomics, specifically the keyboard, and I have yet to find a $300 (or $600) Windows or Android machine with a keyboard comparable to a Mac. If it exists, I hope someone will let me know in the comments.

[sscalia]

Someone didn't like "spergy"

Heh.

[yeukhon]

I find some huge difference as a user.

I don't have to drive if I don't have to. If I want to drive I can lease a car for a few hours or a few weeks. I don't have to change the car's interior. I don't need to install new software to match my taste. I pick up the key, unlock the car and I am ready to go on the road. I put all my personal accessories under a bucket so when I return I know I have everything in the bucket and ready to go home.

I may need a spare laptop for a day or two. But I have to download the software over again and again. I use Firefox, but I also need Chrome. I need to download Adium as IRC client. I need thunderbird to be my email client. I need iterm2 to be my terminal. I need to set up a bunch of things. When I return I need to make sure I have the laptop restored to factory state. But I am paranoid some data maybe kept secret? What if the computer comes with malware already?

If I need a Mac computer to do testing, this business is great. When I am done testing I can return the machines.

[nickconfer]

One business model has worked for a long time and the other has failed a lot. Haha, maybe that statement itself is not very correct though considering the car industries recent history.

I think you've started a very interesting discussion here with you're comment. The 10x cost reference was a good point, but computers not dropping value over time also seems more feasible.

[ef4]

One of the big drivers for car leasing is tax policy. From my cursory understanding, you can generate bigger short-term, tax-deductible business expenses with a lease than a purchase.

Since computers presumably depreciate faster than cars, the benefit is probably smaller for computers.

[herpy]

I expect they have an exit strategy: Apple buys them and uses their expertise and client base to kick-start this as a direct service.

[psychometry]

Also, you'll get no bulk pricing discount from Apple.