Flashback — WEF’s Ida Auken: ‘Why Do You Want to Own a Cell Phone if You Can Just Lease It?’

EXCERPT:

AUKEN: “Every product is a service waiting to happen. If you think about it — I mean, your cellphone? Why do you want to own your cell phone? How many of you own your cell phones? How many know if the company owns it? It’s actually not a lot. I mean, you want — you want the function, you want the service, right? Why do you want to own a cell phone if you can just lease it? And if you lease, why shouldn’t you lease your refrigerator, or your washing machine, or your dishwasher, or — why do you want to own it? I mean, it’s not like the plastic and the metal is like, ‘Yoo-hoo! I own it.’ A broken dishwasher. I mean, wow. No, why don’t you want to go into a business model where the company owns it? You know what happens when the company owns it? Actually, they can bring down the prices because they don’t have to buy new metal and new plastic.”

(via Twitter)