My dream service!

[Rosewood99]

Wouldn't it be cool if you could subscribe to a service where you would pay a monthly or yearly fee and get a different guitar each month? To expand on my dream, you could order any exotic guitar out there. At the end of the month you would return it and the next one would arrive.

Or maybe swapping service where members could swap guitars for a month.

I know reality would interfere (liability for damages, etc) but there are so many guitars I would love to try and will never get to play.

Nice to dream.

[SFCRetired]

I thought that was what GC and MF was for. And they give you back all of your money don't they? I have never bought on line from them so I don't know.

But I do know people use/abuse them for this purpose.

[Ted @ LA Guitar Sales]

Originally Posted by paulzoom

Wouldn't it be cool if you could subscribe to a service where you would pay a monthly or yearly fee and get a different guitar each month?

I wouldn't be surprised if someone was already working on it. Hooking you in to permanent monthly payments seems to be the trend.

[Rosewood99]

Originally Posted by SFCRetired

I thought that was what GC and MF was for. And they give you back all of your money don't they? I have never bought on line from them so I don't know.

But I do know people use/abuse them for this purpose.

Every month????

[SFCRetired]

Seems to me there would be a lot of people noodling on new guitars and not learning anything. Too much concentration of the guitar and not enough focus on playing and learning.

Playing guitar is a journey that never ends.

[Rosewood99]

Originally Posted by SFCRetired

Seems to me there would be a lot of people noodling on new guitars and not learning anything. Too much concentration of the guitar and not enough focus on playing and learning.

Playing guitar is a journey that never ends.

Not sure why. Maybe if you only had if for a few days. But a month would be way different.

[zabdart]

Actually, I'm happy with what I have. That's the key.
GAS expands to meet, or exceed, disposable income.

[Riverwolf]

1- No. It takes more than one month to really bond with a new guitar
2- The guitars would not be taken care of, it really would be like GC
3- But OK, I'm in

[fazool]

Cost modeling doesn't really work because this isn't renting, nor is it ownership. I tried to make up some cost models but they didn't seem to make any sense. The reason is that the cost of ownership goes way down when you resell a guitar. If you keep it forever, it's a sunk cost. If you keep it for 10 years you are basically "renting" it for the difference in buy-vs-sell price.

The important thing is about the timing. How long you own something affects the cost of ownership, even after resale because you need to amortize the depreciation.

So, let's try a co-op model.

To make this interesting, let's say this is a four year "subscription" program and you need fifty guitars, so you get a different one every month.

OK, so we basically need fifty people to buy a guitar and we all do a round-robin trade, every month. That way, for four years, everyone gets to try a new guitar for a month, and everyone gets to try out fifty different guitars.

So, each member needs to buy a guitar (let's say each has to cost $3000-$7000, we will use $5000 as an average). OK, so after it's done, we can sell our guitar probably for $2000 because its been widely used. So, this program will cost us $3000 for four years.

Sooooo.....for about $60/per month we can try out a different high end guitar every month. But, we have to factor shipping and special-insurance in, so it will cost about $100/month.

That probably sounds expensive but if you buy a $5000 guitar and sell it for $2500 four years later, you spent about $50/month to own one single guitar.

How does this compare to renting?

I think a co-op with some protection and insurance and such would be the way to go.

[Rosewood99]

Originally Posted by fazool

Cost modeling doesn't really work because this isn't renting, nor is it ownership. I tried to make up some cost models but they didn't seem to make any sense. The reason is that the cost of ownership goes way down when you resell a guitar. If you keep it forever, it's a sunk cost. If you keep it for 10 years you are basically "renting" it for the difference in buy-vs-sell price.

The important thing is about the timing. How long you own something affects the cost of ownership, even after resale because you need to amortize the depreciation.

So, let's try a co-op model.

To make this interesting, let's say this is a four year "subscription" program and you need fifty guitars, so you get a different one every month.

OK, so we basically need fifty people to buy a guitar and we all do a round-robin trade, every month. That way, for four years, everyone gets to try a new guitar for a month, and everyone gets to try out fifty different guitars.

So, each member needs to buy a guitar (let's say each has to cost $3000-$7000, we will use $5000 as an average). OK, so after it's done, we can sell our guitar probably for $2000 because its been widely used. So, this program will cost us $3000 for four years.

Sooooo.....for about $60/per month we can try out a different high end guitar every month. But, we have to factor shipping and special-insurance in, so it will cost about $100/month.

That probably sounds expensive but if you buy a $5000 guitar and sell it for $2500 four years later, you spent about $50/month to own one single guitar.

How does this compare to renting?

I think a co-op with some protection and insurance and such would be the way to go.

I like your thinking!