These groups are awesome, but they're also fragile.
Our little English town had an amazing Freecycle group running for a while that got us through the "baby clothes" issues that people are discussing here. But the next town over had a "Sell & Seek" group that was essentially the same, but for small cash payments instead of goodwill.
One woman saw the arbitrage opportunity and started accepting pretty much everything that came up on the Freecycle, only to re-list it on the Sell & Seek. My wife gave away a big basket of washable diaper stuff and watched as it all popped back up, one item at a time, for $5-$10 each on that Sell & Seek. Think about the emotional ride that puts you on, from thinking you'd single handedly sorted some new young mom, to realizing you'd been suckered by this... well, not nice person. Then multiply it by every member of that group that gave anything away in good faith.
The Freecycle just sort of went away inside of a month, and now all that's left is that paid version from the next town over.
All it takes for one person to do this and your community dies. Notice that she didn't ever do anything illegal or even "wrong" from her viewpoint. Just the same sort of "disrupting" and arbitrage that we see praised here all the time.
Buy Nothing is specifically distinct from freecycle, it includes some relatively strict rules, "hyperlocal" groups, and moderators. In my experience, I am confident that this sort of behavior would not be tolerated, assuming it was noticed.
I haven't used my local freecycle group much, because it was stuck on the Yahoo groups platform for so long, but that group seemed much more free-for-all, and not connected to an organized, nationwide project like BN is.
I get the sense that the people getting rid of the stuff are as happy to have it taken off their hands and not taking up space in the house.
As you are getting it for free it's implied that it is your responsibility to collect it and that it is as is, like no guarantees about quality etc.
It would be bad form if someone put something up on donedeal.ie or adverts.ie but at the same time I couldn't be bothered doing that so I don't mind too much.
The stuff we've given I usually get the sense that the person has a need for it and is really happy to get it and it's the same when I take something.
I guess it just takes one person to ruin things, but maybe they could have banned that person for abuse.
Yeah, happens a bit with our Freecycle group. As long as they pick it up promptly I don't mind, I'm using it because I want rid. If they started listing it on e.g. gumtree before they've picked it up or worse, not picking it up if it didn't sell, it would cross the line for me.
If you don’t have the time or energy to list something for sale, take photos of the items, deal with the headache of meeting people (perhaps 5 people just to sell a piece of baby clothing), what is the harm in someone else spending their time that way?
I routinely see items at the curb that are worth $20 or more used (like espresso makers or exercise equipment or furniture) with a sign FREE. I assume whoever picks it up just sells it.
So what? If you want to spend your days selling used junk for a few bucks, and I don’t, more power to you. My time is more valuable than that.
I understand why you’re upset and it does seem like this person took advantage of your good will. I guess I would not get too upset about it; you don’t know how much work that person put into selling these things. Could have been a lot more time than made it worthwhile.
The project needs a copyleft licence. That means the things are given away with a contract that states that they have to remain free and selling is forbidden.
How about adding a easy to add but hard to remove tag to stuff like clothes. Or a stamp to books. That way the buyer would at least realise that they bought stuff the seller received for free (and possibly give appropriate feedback/ratings). Of course the seller could remove the mark, but that just needs to be difficult enough to make it not worth their time.
That goes explicitly against the code of buy nothing which is to reduce consumption and give freely with no strings attached. Obviously it's still a problem if someone is monopolizing donations as that discourages participation by a lot of people and hurts the community aspect of BN. As some other commenters have mentioned, a good mitigating strategy is to encourage giving to a random commenter after a couple hours have passed rather than first-come-first-serve.
I think this just shows that unregulated, no strings attached, anarchy style, etc is low hanging fruit for exploitation. Exploitation happens, and we need to deal with it, in my opinion, with attaching some strings. Like with the difference of the AGPL and the MIT license.
Your mitigation strategy would work though too, I think. If it's a raffle kind of thing, then the resellers wouldn't have such an easy time, so it makes this thing less desirable for them.
I've had that with stuff I've Freecycled. In the end I decided not to worry about it. These people aren't getting rich off my castoffs. If they can earn a little bit of extra cash then that's fine by me.
I have some friends here in the Amsterdam which exchanged cloths in a clothing-swap event, and basically you bring N items, you can take up to N items.
Of course my friends went with an 80L backpack full of cloths, so they were told to just pick whatever they wanted, they didn't pick much though.
I don't think this is really such a bad thing. You wouldn't have bothered selling these things because its too much work for too little reward. Now someone has dedicated themselves to redistributing these things to others who want them and taking a tiny fee for the work.
There are groups that try to combat this abuse by introducing some kind of transfer. Everyone gets credits and by giving away stuff/helping people you can earn them.
One could say it's the same as money, but I don't think so. There's no use in hoarding those credits and it's not as strict as real money. As long as it stops abuse it works as intended.
The downside is you now need someone to organize and keep track all of this.
Commerce is not a bad thing and it's an interesting example how incentives work in a dynamic society.
I've noticed this in Berlin as well. There was the famous Free-your-stuff group which then spawned into different splinter groups, The last time I checked Sell-your-suff groups are trend du-jour, and people would repurpose the goods they found for free on FB/Ebay Kleinanzeigen and sell them.
Yeah, this is annoying, I even have one couple in our group of friends who I suspect of happily joining the circle and then selling after they used it instead if gifting as everyone else. It takes all motivation out.
There was a good article in Cracked or similar about the White Bikes in Amsterdam (Free public bikes). The article sadly seems like it was taken down and I've never seen it replicated.
Basically all the White Bikes ended up in the canals, and the theory is simply, 1% of the population is 'bad' all the time and good people are 'bad' 1% of the time (for instance drunk), and you should design for this.
Even if your society is near perfect you still have to engineer around that 1% catastrophic failure. Bikes will be thrown in canals, and that woman possibly is a good person in a 1% bad spot or an outsider who is 'bad' for the group.
My partner and I have young kids, so it is a revolving door of stuff in our house.
Buy Nothing solves a major problem in that if we need to get rid of something, someone wants it. And on the other side of that coin, if we need something, someone probably has it and is looking to part with it.
As an added bonus, we have built a much stronger connection with many of those who live in our neighborhood, people we might not otherwise have crossed paths with.
In the words of your average Ebay review, *A++++ Would Buy Nothing again*
Kids clothes is a major part here. My network of friends has kids older than my own. So they pass all the clothes down - some of them rarely worn. Obviously shoes, undergarments and socks are an exception. Almost everything else is fair game.
We have rarely bought our kids clothes.
On the flip side, we had bought a new crib when my first one was born. It lasted through our 2 kids and now with a family who uses it for her grandchild.
Absolutely. My two year old son now wears a pair of second-hand shoes bought in a boutique that also sells used children's clothing (but only high quality items). It fits him perfectly. Before that a pair of practically unworn shoes with LED-lights in the soles was worn a handful of times; it fitted right enough, but in the summer a pair of Tefa sandals was much more comfortable.
Some pairs of shoes see much more wear than others, and unlike adults, when kids don't wear a pair for a while because the weather is more suitable for other things (sandals or wellies) they'll often hit the next size up by the time they can wear them. So sometimes shoes will hardly be worn at all.
And a pair of kids wellies must see at least twenty pairs of feet before retiring. I don't think these actually ever get to the stage that they are worn out: they just get lost somewhere on the way long before that.
Because shoes tend to wear out a lot faster than other clothes plus wearing shoes that are broken in to someone else's foot doesn't tend to feel all that good.
As long as they seem to fit well it's probably fine, we have used both new and pre-used. But shoes form a bit after the users feet, and if they're used a lot (as shoes are as opposed to rotated clothes) they might be less comfortable and supportive than one would want, and kids depending on age aren't great at realizing they could do better.
If we get used shoes we
At least that's my experience and interpretation of my kids, but YMMV.
I've seen very apolitical people do a buy nothing for kids stuff. I called it the great chain of baby stuff. Just last week a coworker dropped off some diapers that their kid grew out of at another coworkers desk who could use them. Cribs, toys, clothes, handed from one family to another. I've seen a crib go to three different families.
> The Buy Nothing Project is about setting the scarcity model of our cash economy aside in favor of creatively and collaboratively sharing the abundance around us
Somehow this feels less like anarchy and more like a free market solution, where the market finally realizes that monetary value is not the only factor in rational decision making.
This is absolutely anarchist and can be placed as part of a long tradition of mutual aid that can be traced back through Kropotkin.
I don't think it's possible to view this as a free market solution unless you want the term "free market" to lose all meaning. The free market does not have a monopoly on rational decision making. Any market is based around exchange, which this project expressedly rejects.
Not all markets are based around exchange. Kidney exchange markets, for instance, have a component based on a donor giving a kidney for nothing in exchange, starting a chain of kidney donations that could otherwise not occur.
Matching markets are another example that is not based around exchange
It can be traced back to hunter-gatherer populations honestly. So what?
Mutual aid is pretty far away from abolishing the state or abolishing the private ownership of the means of production, which were the bigger ideas of Bakunin and Kropotkin.
The entirety of modern economics is based on the presupposition that monetary value is the only factor in rational decision making.
A "free market" is literally defined as - "a system in which the *prices* for goods and services are self-regulated by the open market and by consumers" - all goods and services have a monetary price in such a system.
It is both inappropriate and in bad taste to call this a free market solution when it is clearly not.
Wikipedia on Free Market Theory: In economics, a free market is a system in which the prices for goods and services are self-regulated by the open market and by consumers. In a free market, the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government or other authority, and from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies and artificial scarcities.
Anarchism.. in my definition, is the lack of a singular authority. Not to be confused with "chaos".
I see this example (Buy Nothing Project) breaking the linear-ness of economy. Harvest, Build, Sell, Consume/Use, Discard. No re-use, no re-cycle. This is not sustainable, especially with population growing. We need to re-use. I don't think that anyone is doing (donating/giving away) to hurt the profits of XYZ company, I strongly believe that we all got so much 'garbage' in our home, things that we haven't touched/used for a looooong time, that as the Minimalists said (the first 120 podcast episodes - after Patreon I dropped them) "find this thing a new home".
Circular economy is what we should be working towards, to get the most possible utility out of any given resource, rather than squandering them in the mistaken belief that there's always going to be plenty more where it came from.
> "I don't think that anyone is doing (donating/giving away) to hurt the profits of XYZ company, I strongly believe that we all got so much 'garbage' in our home, things that we haven't touched/used for a looooong time"
Both motivations are true for my girlfriend and me. We both want to make sure we don't get bogged down with superfluous stuff, so we give them to people who will appreciate and use them, but we also see it as an opportunity to not support corporations that do not have our (societal) best interests in mind.
The less stuff we buy, the less our money is used for purposes we disagree with or even abhor, in many cases. By buying the few things we do buy from small companies with responsible profiles, that's another step towards our money going to better purposes.
I don't really believe in the "power of the consumer" or "voting with your wallet" (both of which just lead to unnecessary consumption), hence why we try to buy as little new stuff as possible and prefer buying second hand whenever possible, but at least the little money we do spend won't be going (directly) to the exploiter's pockets.
I buy a lot of pre-owned stuff, and sell or give away stuff I'm done with whenever possible, for the same reasons. I especially can't stand IKEA, because they embody throwaway culture so much, with their cheaply made furniture. And, if it prevents other peoples' stuff from being thrown out, while I get to save a little money at the same time, so much the better.
The thing with Ikea is that they're known for cheap/disposable furniture, but they also carry furniture made from proper wood, rather than cardboard. My dining table is made from solid wood and you wouldn't think twice about standing on it. Obviously it's more utilitarian than pretty, but it feels like it's made to last. However it also cost a lot more than the flimsy cardboard alternatives right next to it, so it's obvious what people end up going home with.
I will also say that their kitchen cabinets are significantly higher quality than their other lines of shelves and cabinets. Better fasteners, hinges and so on. Yet again, they are significantly more expensive than most of the other furniture they carry.
Still, the amount of proper hardwood furniture in second hand stores is baffling to me, when you see people lugging home glorified cardboard disguised as furniture.
Once you see cash as a broad p2p communication method it’s hard to imagine an Anarchist seeking to undo it as it allows people to collaborate over space and time in so many more ways than barter or physical gift economies.
My wife participates in our local Buy Nothing group and it’s fantastic. They have a couple of rules that seem to help make it work:
1. Hyperlocal: your local group will he made up people near your house. You’ll get to know them. When the group gets too large, it’s split into two smaller groups.
2. Not bartering, not first-come-first-serve. When something is posted, the person offering is supposed to wait a while, then decide who to give it to. I don’t participate in the group, so I don’t know why this makes a difference, but my wife says it does.
This reminds me of a personal policy I have with friends and acquaintances. Nobody ever “owes” me a beer. If I buy them one that’s the end of it. We are always “even”.
I don’t assume others work the same way so I also attempt to return favors. I think it’s a healthier frame of mind to not keep track of all the ways people potentially owe me something. Especially when it is trivial.
If I am keeping track I think it’s worth reevaluating the relationship entirely.
Or said another way I can see this policy working for Buy Nothing because it requires a healthy community. If the community is unhealthy the system breaks down. This reverts to any number of other perfectly good money/barter based alternatives like Craigslist and clones.
I have a few “policies” that I think are uncommon.
1. I never lend money because I have found the obligation upon the person receiving the money leads to negative consequences for me as a lender (whether friend or acquaintance). Instead I decide whether or not to gift the amount (or part of it), and I tell the person to “pay it back to someone else in need when they are well off in the future” or similar reason. Saying no is hard, but saying no is easier than dealing with the consequences of a friend that can’t easily pay money back (or even worse someone needs reminding which completely sucks, or they just don’t pay it backf).
2. I try to share costs approximately based upon ratios of disposable income, where possible. Some friends have $20 disposable after a week’s work, when I might have orders of magnitude more. Socially, this is a complicated manoeuvre, but it means I can pay for things we might like to do together, even though a friend might have radically different levels of income (or spare time). When that scheme won’t work for some tit-for-tat people, missing out on some things is the only option left (either we do something cheap, or they can’t be involved).
3. I don’ t get started with rounds of drinks - the social pressures are unfair on some and I dislike the obligation to drink to excess.
4. I sometimes offer drinks or dinner or whatever if someone can accept a freebie - I never do this when I would feel unwillingly obliged. I hardly ever buy someone a drink if they ask for it, as I don’t want to encourage that dynamic.
maybe not as uncommon as you may think. I do 2) a lot; most of my friends from college are not software engineers and I don't want any of my friends to be "priced out" of hanging out. I usually try to do it in a subtle way (eg, spend $30 on pizza, not mention what it really cost, and ask everyone for one or two dollars), not sure if that makes it more or less awkward. 3) and 4) I agree with, though I never find myself in a situation where that would be relevant.
I do 1) differently. I was more generous in the past, but some people took advantage of that. I've also come to feel that simply giving money jeopardizes the peer relationship. instead, I now give any friend who asks a 0% interest loan with no due date. no questions asked, but I do keep track (roughly) of how much I've lent out to each person. I never say anything about it, but if they hit $1000 or so, I start saying no to further requests. I guess this probably violates the spirit of your policy, but I prefer this approach over having to decide yes or no for each individual request.
I've come to believe that the problem of 1) shows a basic mistake that capitalist theory makes about human behavior. Helping people is a show of dominance. It creates resentment from the people helped; "You think I need help? You think you can help me?" is about a millimeter away from "You think you're better than me?" It also often creates resentment in the helper if the helped person doesn't show proper submission (euphemistically called "gratitude" but evaluated through performance), or doesn't change their behavior "You wasted the money I gave you for food on beer?"
The idea that you accumulate wealth in order to give more away than anybody else, and through that gaining power, proving your superiority to the people you help e.g. "potlatch" culture, is completely left out of the capitalist theory of mind.
I've been reading Bataille lately, who was onto something like that with "The Accursed Share." His ideas surrounded by a lot of mystical trappings, though - he seemed to see himself as a sort of anarchist neocon - intentionally creating myths and rituals to get people to follow material goals.
edit: It's the gift that creates resentment, whether or not there's the boilerplate of a loan. Even repayment doesn't eliminate the resentment. Capitalists try to solve that with interest and an abstract time-value of money. Outside of capitalism it's solved through the person receiving the gift either 1) accumulating resources that could help the gift-giver, and watching them carefully to find the time when they could offer an equally effective reciprocal gift, or 2) helping others even weaker to show that they still have the ability to dominate.
I have personally adopted a "never loan, only give" policy since I was a teenager, which has often been a "I understand that you're definitely going to pay me back, so if you need to consider it a 0% loan with a balloon payment due at the heat death of the Universe, consider it that" or a "do a nice thing for someone else" (similar to you both.) I don't know that all of the verbiage made a difference.
edit2: I'm pretty sure we recognize the most dominant person as the person who has no possessions, but who everyone feels obligated and honored to host and to help. It's the fantasy of what people think the Dalai Lama is (rather than the title of the former heads of state of Tibet.)
I don't have anything to add other than to say that was a great explication of what I meant by "simply giving money jeopardizes the peer relationship". I didn't quite know how to explain that further myself, thanks!
How do you make 2) happen practically? I’ve done as the sibling poster suggested and just not tell people how much something cost and ask them for a smaller % for their share. But it feels a bit icky sometimes.
It is difficult: for many people paying for things is a strong status signal, so your friend has to trust you are not being a dick. For a restaurant bill, I might suggest we each pay half an hours wages each (not really fair, but closer). If it is something they couldn’t otherwise afford it makes it easier since then I can pay. For those with spare time, I might suggest I pay for something, and they later do something that takes some small amount of time for me like have a meal at theirs and be sociable (again, avoiding status signalling work, it has to be something with respect on both sides).
Sometimes when I know someone has spent say their weeks disposable income when doing something together, I spend a weeks disposable income on something they need: the price discrepancy means they can’t repay it equally so they have to come up with another mental model. That can only be done nicely to some people (no one wants to feel in debt or obligated).
It is very dependant on each person and each situation, and there is no generic tidy way to deal with the discrepancy.
The way I have done it with both groups of friends and past partners is we rotate who chooses the activity, and that person pays that time. So if you can only be cheap and do picnic in the park that's fine, but if you want to spend more that's also ok. This works best if your friends (both poorer and richer) are not materialistic and don't keep count, and it needs to be a fairly steady group, 5 or less works best.
My friends and I more or less trade off on paying for food at restaurants. It's not calculated, but over the long term of switching off paying for various meals of various costs, it should mostly shake out to be about even, and mostly just reduces hassle when we get the check.
I think there's a lot of value in even just taking turns in giving and taking, even if you aren't tracking the exact dollars and cents.
>If you are keeping track I think it’s worth reevaluating the relationship entirely.
This is a tough one, I've met many different cultures (although, in particular Slavic ones, sometimes Dutchies too) who really cannot stand not having the balances settled. Few of my friends who I'm very close with will still just want common things to be evened out as soon as possible. I don't think you can make a rule out of it.
Drinks? Preferably settled the same night (more rounds). If not settled the same night, it goes into the infinite pool of “drinks on you next time we meet” where nobody keeps track.
Favors? "Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me."
Fair point. I will clarify I am an American who was raised in a Christian household.
My comment was based purely on my own worldview and is in no way meant to imply other people should emulate me. I edited that line to say I re-evaluate the relationship instead of you, which sounded prescriptive.
Fair callout that I could be excluding others but I never refuse being “paid back” and I never expect others to forgive a favor or debt.
I thjnk my philosophy would still be compatible with making Slavic friends :)
Yes, that was an interesting culture shock when I moved to the Netherlands. It didn't help that where I'm from it was much more common in a bar to pay as you go, or in a restaurant for everyone to pay a share (either listing off what they had, or just dividing, whatever makes the most sense) at the counter on the way out.
In the Netherlands, your table will run a tab and someone pays, and then later sends a tikkie (it's an app that makes paying the person back very easy) to the group. They get kinda weirded out if you violate this model, e.g. recently I was going to the shop, and a friend asked for something - €6 or so, small enough that I don't mind not being paid back for a one-off thing, and then a few weeks later sent me a message "I remembered you never sent me a tikkie for that, please do!"
There's a standard joke screenshot that goes around here of a whatsapp message after a date, translated, "Please pay €0.25 for mayo on your fries." It's probably not a joke.
> This reminds me of a personal policy I have with friends and acquaintances. Nobody ever “owes” me a beer. If I buy them one that’s the end of it. We are always “even”.
I am the same, with the addition that if someone says something like "your shout I think?" they might be having trouble so I will usually go along with it. Better to potentially help a friend in need than be petty.
It goes along with a mindset that I have always had, which is that it shows more strength to give than it does to take. I think most decent people have that internalized in various ways.
Sustained relationships have to be two-way to flourish. So, while one should not keep track of what favors to call, one should consider taking favors from the folks we have given favors to.
It boosts their self-esteem as well, that they have the ability to give, and have exercised it.
I will use this as a chance to recommend the book "Debt:
The First 5000 Years" by the late anthropologist David Graeber. The book is full of interesting stories about how various societies do and don't choose to keep track of the debts people owe to one another.
The not owing a drink thing reminds me of the concept of rounds. I guess Americans don’t practice it so much, but in Oz it’s kind of expected that people cycle through buying rounds. And there’s always a sense amongst a group of who’s up next, even across multiple days/nights.
As an American who only has occasionally bought or received a “round,” your comment reminds me of the strange issues around tipping.
When rounds are not expected, it feels really nice when someone unexpectedly buys everyone a round. Similarly, it feels delightfully magnanimous to buy a round; makes you feel like a King.
I can see how it quickly loses its charm once it’s an expected transaction to honor.
When I visited Taiwan a few years ago I really came to appreciate the tradition of refilling the glass(es) of your companions before your own. Want more tea? Top someone else off first. Same with beer in their comically small glasses.
It’s a much more intimate experience and we formed relationships with people without even being able to speak at a conversational level.
I like your point. However one thing I severely dislike about East Asian meal & drink culture is the implication that drinking alone - simply sipping your drink while enjoying the meal & conversation - means you are not enjoying yourself, and possibly also insulting the host.
This means that every time you want to sip your drink you have to entertain this needless protocol: identify someone around the table - preferably someone you have yet to drink with - say cheers (translation required), and sometimes drink all of the 60 mL cup at once. You should also keep a checklist of who you have and haven't drunk with. The more political, the greater the need to move around the table at random intervals, shake hands, and drink. This is a demonstration often devoid of meaning.
If it's a real party it can be fun to bottoms-up all the drinks. For a more relaxed meal & conversation setting (my preference), as an outsider this is uncomfortable. It ruins the slow enjoyment of expensive alcohol. Why can't I sip my own damn drink with my meal?!
Also as someone who drinks a lot less as I get older, I lately find myself not drinking at all at these events, because there is no middle ground.
I think you overthink the whole thing. I’ve eaten a lot of meals in some of those countries (I live in East-Asia) and I’ve never felt I had to follow such protocol, to the extent they exists at all. The situation may be different in formal setting in China if the internet is to be trusted but besides it really seems like thinking too much after reading a few blogposts. Especially as foreigners we are not bound to every little protocolar details and it would even be strange to be a try-harder.
It sounds like you have more experience with these things but what you are describing is not consistent with my experience.
It was totally acceptable to sip a drink. If I was empty and needed a refill I would simply take the shared container (650ml beer bottle, tea pot, etc.) and first refill someone or everyone’s drink, empty or not. Essentially the personal containers were bottomless.
I never felt an obligation to refill a specific person’s drink. But that situation never really came up because everyone eventually is the person initiating the refills.
It’s possible I was offending a lot of people. In fact it is likely. They were certainly generous enough to not say so however.
One thing I've noticed is that it can take just a few
'reserved' people, to make everyone start second guessing themselves. So I think there is some value in having some spaces and gatherings where it's mandatory to be open.
Also here in Aus there is 'shouting' too. I don't know where the term originated from but generally if you've had some sort of stroke of good luck or unexpected fortune then it's your shout, which is basically a free round of drinks on you.
When I used to go to the pub with my cricket team the person who scored the highest that day would shout the group. Or if you'd won big on the poker machines etc then it would be your shout.
That’s definitely a thing here. I just extend that philosophy a bit. If we go out after work and I buy two rounds but you buy one we are still even. I’m not going to keep track and insist you buy first next time. Also “buy a beer” is kind of shorthand for “do a favor”. If I help you set the idle on your motorcycle I never expect compensation.
It is healthier and I prefer it highly, until you notice there is this one friend that goes out with 10 euros and often takes it back home as well. Led tom some arguments in the past.
I'd also like to chime in that I hate the "sprout" system where they split the group into smaller groups when they get to an arbitrary size, as others have mentioned.
We live in a middle-class neighbourhood. It is desirable: there are big mansions by the river, several blocks of turn-of-the-century character homes, and then cookie cutter boxes from the 50's for the last couple of blocks. We live in a cookie-cutter box.
It was a wonderful community and then once it hit 1,000 people, they divided it into six smaller groups. Suddenly, we were in this tiny "sprout" with no activity.
A lot of the complaints that spurred the split was that there was too much kids stuff clogging people's news feeds. I don't know why they couldn't have just made a group for kid items and a group for the other stuff.
We ended up dropping out and it hasn't really affected us. Now we just leave stuff we don't want behind our garage (or on the boulevard for city-wide giveaway weekends on long weekends throughout the summer) and the stuff disappears in a few hours.
Honestly, I hate rule #1. The divisions are fairly arbitrary, there's no real way to figure out what group you belong to, and sometimes the splits completely destroy the community that was built up.
Belltown, in Seattle, got split into 3 (4? I can't remember) communities and there's still questions about which group people belong to because they're not sure if they're covered by one or another along the boundaries. Some of the resulting communities are far more active than others, too.
I moved from there to Greenwood in North Seattle and I quite literally have no idea what my new group is because there doesn't seem to be a map and all of the Greenwood groups end 2 blocks south of me.
We were part of the original group on Bainbridge Island. It became vastly less useful when it was split into subsets of the island. It's not like the island is that big...
Greenwood had a fantastic community, then it got big enough the moderators wanted to split it. The community revolted, the moderators backed down for a while. Eventually they forced it to split despite universal resistance.
Ha Capitol Hill was split into a bunch of tiny groups and half the group just migrated into a new "Don't Buy Things Capitol Hill" group someone created instead of going down to their new 3-block setup.
I’m extremely curious about
Rule number two, so I have to ask if you would be willing to get the feedback on why there important and share it with us? I feel like there is a genuine insight with this rule that isn’t obvious to me and likely others
I've seen a similar group without the second rule. It's a mess because the instant anyone posts anything there are many users who reflexively post "Q" (as in queue for item). Then when you reply to give them the item, they say they decided they don't want it. This can all happen within minutes.
Time delay is more fair and less anxiety inducing.
Probably helps items go to people who really need them instead of scalpers, vultures, and hoarders who make a business of being ready to pounce on free items.
And besides the vultures sniping everything, not everyone has enough free time to continuously monitor the group. Some people can spend their whole day with a Facebook tab open, others have one hour a day to catch up.
One thing I've learned from running a Hackerspace: no, it's not possible.
There is no possible window that's relatively short (hours) and will fit everyone who wants to participate. For any day and hour you pick, someone will be permanently excluded (because of e.g. their job, studies), and other people will miss it regularly due to irregular life events.
And ultimately, there's no point in doing that if the activity itself doesn't require for everyone to be doing something together. Such a posting isn't a team meeting; it can be done asynchronously.
But without the negative connotation, because the obligation to give the item away after waiting for an arbitrary period means that if you can't find anybody who wants it, at least somebody will get it who knows how to resell it better than you do, and will thereby deliver it to someone who will enjoy it.
edit: the "I Haul Junk For Free" person serves a function.
It disincentivizes looking at the site 24/7 to be the first claimer.
You see similar proposals for stock markets to process all orders that come in within one second in arbitrary order, to disincentivize the insanely expensive chase for nanoseconds in high speed trading.
My local group encourages a 24-hour waiting period to equalize the opportunity for group members to claim items. Generally, the people who really need a certain item don't have enough free time to constantly check the group, or are working the sorts of jobs where they're offline for long periods of time.
It is designed to be more inclusive that way -- otherwise, some people grab everything and others are discouraged and become disengaged. Also, a big mission of the Buy Nothing Project is to build a sense of community among the members and a lot of that plays out in the comment thread interactions. It's better for the community-building if people take the time to type out thoughtful comments and share a little about themselves, as opposed to race to be the first to type "Interested" or "me!"
Personally, the whole thing feels oppressive to me. I'd rather pay $30 on Amazon than explain to my "community" why I should be chosen to get X or Y.
It reminds me Charlie Sheen's quip about prostitutes: "I don’t pay them for sex. I pay them to leave." Likewise, one of the primary benefits of ordinary money/stuff transactions is that it's not all tangled up with obligation or any other social baggage.
Oppressive is kind of an absurd word to describe this. It's a friendly neighborhood organization that allows you to get and give junk for free.
- Sometimes multiple people are interested in a give.
- The giver needs to choose one somehow.
- Random selection is as common as anything else in my group.
- Some people like to give details, some people like to hear them, and some people like to use them to prioritize, because it fosters relationships with their close neighbors. It is by no means required.
If you ever decide that perhaps buying another new plastic thing from China via Amazon is not the best solution to a problem in your life, consider trying it.
Sure, it's not for everyone because there is social pressure to leave a kind word for others in your community, and there are other free exchange groups that may fit your style more. No one is required to explain why they need something, but a lot of people feel comfortable saying "my daughter would love this" instead of a lot of "me"s and "next"s. It's a weird vicarious dopamine hit for everyone else reading along; hard to explain if you haven't experienced it.
> Personally, the whole thing feels oppressive to me.
To me, too. It reads like "In order to be considered for a gift, explain how you suck and can't provide, and how good you are at feeling generalized gratitude and appreciation. All of you will be judged, the least capable and most thankful will be chosen."
My wife has probably given away 50+ items of ours on buy nothing. Usually she appreciates being able to choose because some people develop a reputation for being unreliable to pick them up, so she can exclude them.
People have different schedules, the goal of giving away most items is to make sure it gets to the person who needs it most. Letting a post sit for 24hrs gives everyone a chance to see it.
People comment about why they need it or will use it for in that time, then the poster can decide who to give it to after a fair amount of time.
> the person offering is supposed to wait a while, then decide who to give it to.
Some people may be more needy or deserving?
Or, if you strictly followed first come/first serve, some people might abuse the platform by constantly being "first!!!" on everything. Having a delay makes that harder to get away with.
I participate in a similar group (freecycle), and this is very important. Otherwise a few people who are always on the group get everything, and I'm pretty sure some of them just resell anything valuable.
Since getter is chosen then there might be small incentive to be in a good standing with everybody so you get the stuff when others are interested too.
I like this, but I've blocked Facebook from my life.
My /etc/hosts file directs all network requests to 0.0.0.0.
Sometimes I miss Facebook for these kinds of things, I wish there was a super popular open-source social network that all my friends would use. Or a free social network without all the nasty practices.
Yeah, sadly this is a nonstarter for me due to this. Perhaps somebody will expand the idea outside of the Facebook ecosystem, but I'm not about to sign up for Facebook just to give this a try.
When I initially typed in my zipcode and smacked Enter, nothing happened. At all.
I tried again with a neighboring zip, but this time I hesitated for a moment to make sure I entered it right, and the search box did a weird thing where it popped down an expanded city name along with the zip code. I clicked this and THEN smacked enter, and I got a search results page!
Of course there are no results in my area (and no way to tell how large a radius it considers "my area"; should I try again with a zip a few miles away? a few dozen miles away?), but now I know there's a secret-knock to get into the site.
Facebook bans accounts with fake info. They are pretty good at it too. I assume they simply use the contact info the scraped and look for your name in your friends contact lists.
My wife and I love to get rid of stuff. However one challenge using free cycle or free Craigslist is it seems to attract people with a hoarding problem. People that jump on any free thing without a sense for how they would use it. So I feel better giving things away for free when they say how they’ll use it or show specific gratitude for the item. Or give them to a thrift store where they enable a charity.
Hoarders love regular CL too. I sold a huge and somewhat expensive 21" CRT monitor on CL and the buyer asked me to deliver it. When I got to his door, he cracked it open and said just leave the monitor in the hall. The apartment was completely jammed with stuff.
Making people who need your stuff pay you in stories or "gratitude" does not appeal to me anyway. Even if I have a $5 item to give away and someone just flips it for profit, that is time they spent and I did not, so the item is still gone from my home and someone who actually wants it gets it. The fact that one other person also benefitted doesn't bother me.
When I things in this way I'm not looking for either. I'm generally trying to minimise my environmental impact via landfill. Helping others at the same time is a bonus. I'm not looking to make money or friends/community.
Not that there is anything wrong with people that are of course. Different folks have different priorities.
Yeah, if I'm giving something away, it's because I have decided it doesn't really hold any value for me anymore, nor would it be worth the time and hassle to try and sell it.
So I'll give it away and if anyone thinks it's worth the time and effort to sell it, that's not for me to decide. Once it is out of my hands, it is no longer mine.
You may be falling in love with just one view on the world. There may be things that money can’t capture, or are too complex for financial calculation, or rely too much on hyper-rationalism in everyday interactions.
It seems that the human neocortex has evolved mostly for social group formation, and the theory of money is that an economic actor can be nearly basal in their pursuit of it and still produce a functional society. This is a remarkable starting point toward higher levels of organization, but fundamentally proven incorrect. Money does not produce positive results when introduced to cultures without pre-existing large-scale social cooperation based on things like morality. Even in these groups money creates prosperity but makes them vulnerable to extremely profitable forms of parasitism, which ultimately lead to collapse.
Money is a good thing, but it has failure modes that exploit the human emotions it was meant to replace, and we haven’t evolved past that point. When I look at the economy, I don’t see hard-nosed rationality maximizing progress toward human achievement. I see 99.99% irrational human emotions or rational exploit of the same, with maybe a few people out there spending a bit of their time on progress.
The problem I have had more with "free" on Craigslist is that I get a lot of super-flakey people who reply immediately and then don't show up to take the item after a bunch of coordination effort. I've stopped listing items for free on Craigslist, and I either (1) list it for a more-than-fair but nonzero price, or (2) put it out on the street with a sign that says "free' (only for items that will obviously disappear quickly). Adding the price on Craigslist seems to weed out the worst flakiness-offenders.
I don't know how I didn't think of this. I was just wondering if there was a way to filter Craigslist down to just local (<2 mile radius), but street-free works perfectly.
I've lived places that weren't dense enough for it to work. But in a fairly urban environment, provided that the item is not total crap, it tends to go fast. I have had cases where I found a taker after I left my front door to take the item out but before I had set it on the sidewalk. :D
I've had a fair amount of such hassle. I find delivering the things, assuming they are small enough as I have no car so it will be done by cycle or by taking a detour on a run, at a time if my choosing works.
I also ask directly in the listing that people let me know approximately where they are without me having to ask, and I ignore anyone who doesn't - this weeds out the people who just mash "can I have this" or "is this still available" without actually reading the listing, who are most likely to be time wasters in my experience.
For higher value items in the current C19 climate, insisting I deliver locally also stops people taking unnecessary journies between risk areas, and puts me in more control of my risk profile.
I've found this on Freecycle. They way around it is to ask a question in the offering post. Anybody who doesn't answer gets excluded and the problem goes away.
This. I always put a fun question like "tell me your favorite knock-knock joke in the subject line of your response email". It filters the bots and I get a laugh.
Are you sure these people aren't collecting all the free stuff in the neighbourhood, then selling anything of value and hoarding the rest?
Those hoarded items are usually unsellable in their current form, but with a bit of restoration could become sellable. Some items are faulty, but are still hoarded for parts to help repair other items.
Overall this behaviour is probably very good for the planet - many items end up seeing far more use than they would otherwise.
It's questionable if its good economic use of these people's time though. Is it worth them spending all day collecting and repairing a $150 TV, when they could have gone to work in a factory that can turn out a new TV every 30 seconds for far fewer dollars?
> It's questionable if its good economic use of these people's time though.
It may not be, but the problem usually is that the market can't make a better use of those people's time. I don't think many people would work such high effort, low pay tasks if they could actually get a better job.
I don’t feel good enabling another persons problem. Just like I wouldn’t feel great inviting a person with an alcohol problem to join me at an open bar
> If you’re just giving it away as a free disposal service, then sure it doesn’t matter.
For my wife and me it's not just free disposal (I can handle my free disposal by going downstairs and dumping it by the side of the trash container). It's about ensuring a working item doesn't get trashed, but will continue being useful for someone else.
In all my wife's giveaways, there's one or two people out there who are regular, repeat "customers". But we can't tell whether they're hoarders, or whether they just happen to need all the stuff they get from us, or whether they pass that stuff on to their family and friends. Or hell, maybe they resell it. Doesn't matter, as long as we're somewhat confident someone will make use of it - because that's someone who saved their money, and that's one less item being bought.
No - if your goal is helping people then knowing the recipient is a hoarder may make it questionable whether you are meeting your goal. If your goal is getting rid of stuff then knowing about the recipient doesn't change whether you are achieving it.
We leave plenty of stuff out by the curb for folks to take for free.
We've got a hoarder couple 3 doors down who have been running a yard sale for about 5 years straight now.
I can't say I particularly care who gets the stuff we're giving away, but my wife and I definitely roll our eyes at each other when they see the hoarders attempting to sell something we left out for free.
If you are getting rid of unused things at your home by giving them to a hoarder, you are only shifting the problem from your home to the hoarder's home, isn't it?
I guess we could debate it either way. It comes down to personal preference.
Beyond enabling a hoarder, it can also attract more hassle than giving away a free item is worth. People who won't keep an appointment, people who ask you to deliver a large item across town for free, who show up with a trailer but no ropes and want to take yours, etc. An alternative is listing very cheap and then declining their money and giving the item away.
It bothers me too. I've learned that listing something for free on Craigslist attracts the people who will demand they you wait for them to drive 4 hours your way or complain that it's not in perfect condition. But listing a table for $10 instead makes regular people think it's a great deal while filtering out some of the hoarders.
I do the same, and then will just tell the person to not worry about the $10. "Really, you sure?", "Yeah, I'm just looking to get rid of it, but if you list it as free people treat you like crap and often don't actually come to pick it up." I don't do this often, but every time the person has understood exactly what I meant.
Yes and for this reason I now only sell on Craigslist even just for nominal amounts. The point of separating from stuff is for it to be more useful to other people, it's not great if it's just going to sit in a hoarder's house instead of my storage.
Yes, I do like giving things away but it matters to me that it will be useful to them. I generally give away my tech (gpus, keyboards, computer parts, kindles, headsets) to friends and coworkers, which usually means through previous conversations with them that I know they'll use it. I think that's the motivation for me.
It's also a good way of introducing them to tech that they wouldn't normally get for themselves. The best example is mechanical keyboards; most people don't think they want one until they've used it regularly. And kindles.
Yes absolutely. I've found that putting up microbarriers solves this. In your message ask them to reply with what they will use it for and a specific time they will be over to pick it up. This stops the emails I used to get that just said "WANT" and also the "my second cousin may drive in 3 weeks from now can you put it outside under the full moon next to the Starbucks store that's 27 miles from your house" type replies.
I have found it almost pointless to try listing stuff for less than $50 because you get loads of non committal people messaging you and then not picking up the item. I tend to just list stuff for a price and then accept any counter offer requested. Filters out the hoarders and selects only the ones who actually want it.
My wife and I are moving into a smaller house in six weeks. We're trying to get rid of around half of our stuff and almost all of it has been going to the Buy Nothing group. It's been fantastic. So many things I'll say "just throw that out", my wife will say "Nope, someone will want it!" She posts it on the group, rolls a die to decide who among the replies gets it, puts it out on the front porch and it's gone the next day.
We've gotten a ton of stuff from the group as well. A big thing is, as someone else mentioned, stuff for children. For example in our group there's been a package of accessories going around for a 1 year old's birthday party. When our daughter turned 1 we got the package, threw her a birthday party, then passed it along to the next person. We've gotten lots of toys from the group, and when we find that our daughter doesn't care for a toy anymore we pass it back to the group.
The only problem with it of course is that it requires Facebook. I deleted my account a long time ago and have Facebook blocked from all my devices but my wife keeps it around largely for the Buy Nothing group. I wish there was a way to participate without Facebook.
Tangentially I’ve often wondered what happens to America as an economy if people stop consuming stuff (i.e., if there was some broader “contentment” movement)? If people become content with less, and no longer need to work 40+ hour weeks to buy things, what are the economic ramifications? Presumably our GDP falls and we take in less money in taxes (perhaps we consequently have to raise taxes)? Is there anything particularly concerning or particularly positive?
It’s a hypothetical scenario. Americans provide services, but the economy is interconnected. If people who make goods are affected, then the people who provide services to those people will be affected and so on.
Consumerism is an extremely inefficient form of wealth redistribution. Or if you prefer a "proof of work" system like Bitcoin.
Without consumerism, a person whose only skill is "making near-useless stuff" will starve, and likewise will a person with skills but can't get a job because someone else is willing to work 60hrs/wk instead of 2 people x 30hrs/wk.
At an individual level, you could pay businesses/people to do useful work like picking up litter or charity/NGO projects
If company A is producing a half-baked mediocre product and flooding the market to keep company B from gaining market share, is that a good thing? Top down this is a good thing since it shows GDP growth but in reality is it really progress? I think this is where capitalism falls short. Is the pace of innovation tied to economic growth? I think that’s a more interesting question.
This is like Gresham’s law of GDP growth. I don’t think it measures anything except potential tax revenues, which supports the value of of a central bank’s currency in the same way that revenues support the stock of a company. It’s very similar to how web site companies work in that the product is free to produce, and their equity value is based on the amount it gets used.
But ultimately I’d say no; the value of a web site or an economic system is in its efficiency, not the stickiness of its inefficiency. Imagine an alien comparing Wikipedia to Twitter. Both are information services sourced from user contributions. Twitter is just designed to be massively inefficient, and that is how it derives its equity value. Google has also been downranking the most efficient websites for years now due to this valuation convention.
But it’s really only a convention. Wall St, or the Fed could come up with a different measure of value and it would change everything. A more sustainability-oriented web measure might be ratio of information access to creation, implying robust value. You only need to look at AOL instant messenger or MySpace to realize why this would be important. Wikipedia’s total value is probably greater on a long enough timeline.
A more sustainable measure of a economy might be something like exports per natural resource consumed, including human time. A good example is an IP creator like Charlie Chaplin or Antione de Saint-Expury or any of a host of scientists. I’m not sure that consumptive GDP has much relevance to the competitiveness and sustainability of an economy.
I'm confused. Are they subtly suggesting readers buy their book (by linking to the publisher's site instead of a site to locate the book in local libraries). Would a publisher like Simon and Schuster agree to publish a book that would only be sold to libraries. Aren't there ways they could communicate whatever information is in the book without having to sell something (thereby encouraging people to buy something, violating the project's prime directive of "Buy Nothing").
At one point recently, the founders tried to very mildly promote their book and all the admins of all the Buy Nothing chapters gave them a lot of backlash for trying to hawk stuff in the Admin Hub group.
A classic. I remember seeing that as a kid. I wonder how many people actually stole it.
Is there any irony in that the women who started this project are in an area that is the home of Amazon corporate HQ (the company that wants to "sell everything"), and businesses that service/rely on Amazon, living on an commuter island where many Amazon executive level staff, and businesspeople working for firms that service Amazon, are likely to live. If not irony, at least a stark contrast.
I used to look at these ideas with puzzlement. Why the hell do you earn money if you don’t spend the money on things that you enjoy?
Later, I realized that it has a different audience. There are people who genuinely have too many things in their home. I have visited people who had three full shelves of dishes (it was not a big family). Those things take up their space, give them no joy nor practical value, and are better given away. Bird feeders without a bird. Piles of ropes, for absolutely no usage.
Yeah I have never been in a position in my life to just give stuff away. In the small circumstance that I am there is always a close friend I have in mind who would benefit from a gift. Seems insane to be a part of a community that is constantly giving free shit away.
Where are you from. In America there are loads of people with tons of “junk”, even lower class people. Lots of people buy something thinking they’ll use it but they don’t, or they grow out of it, etc.
I really don’t understand this and it sounds wrong to me but I haven’t down voted it because I’m wondering if it could be a cultural thing. Can you say more about never having been in a position for to give stuff away?
Seems simple enough? They only have stuff they use, and they use them until it becomes unusable. I'm frankly much the same, I don't buy new things often and I repair them (or have them repaired, for clothes and shoes) until they start do disintegrate.
All these things hardly cost anything compared to the major expenses of utilities, housing, and food. This is less useful for saving money (although still useful) and more about saving the environment and getting rid of stuff you no longer need.
I'm in my town's local Buy Nothing group on Facebook, and it works alright, but if I ever get rich enough to go full-time on a money-losing business, I'd love to build a dedicated app to replace the facebook groups and make the process easier for everyone.
The current system is incredibly clunky and ripe for abuse. Here's what it looks like for me:
1. Post the item I want to give away
2. Check back in a few hours to see if anyone has commented to say they want it (I'd do first-come, first serve, but it gets abused by people who watch all day and claim everything)
3. Go through the replies to see which are actual requests and not "my friend Steve would probably be interested!"
4. Generate a random number generator and take the result mod number of legitimate requests
5. Notify the winner and give them pickup instructions
6. Put the item out for them
About half the time, there are issues. They don't see the PM I sent them, they forget to pick it up, they realize they have no means to pick it up because they have no car, etc.
Issues with this system:
* Many parts to the process where I have to do something, wait, then come back and do the next step hours later.
* No reputation system. Recipients who are flakey or unreliable can continue being flakey to lots of people, wasting the time of givers, making the whole process less appealing.
* The gift givers are expected to choose a winner at their own discretion, but people are likely choosing recipients based on unfair biases.
Here's how I want it to work:
1. I put the item on my porch
2. I post an item I want to give away. At the time I post, I specify the parameters of how to pick the winner automatically (e.g., they have a rating >= X, they have a verified address within Y miles, randomly select after Z hours).
3. The system automatically notifies the winner and sends them pickup instructions.
4. The winner comes and picks up the item.
5. We both leave feedback to say the transaction went smoothly.
Such a system would be useful for not just your group right? I assume the other requirement is that only authorized people can participate (based on what I read of the general buy nothing project).
Our family participates all the time in our local Buy Nothing. So far, we’ve obtained: baby toys, instruments, baby clothes, tchotkes for the house, kitchen utensils, and even a hunk of elk meat. And anything we post seems to disappear within moments. It’s saved us literally hundreds of dollars and I can’t recommend it more. I tell my wife all the time that it is maybe the only nice thing I have ever gotten out of Facebook!!
Same here. In the past 18 months, we've saved something between $1000 to $2000 on baby stuff alone. And we do our best to "pay it forward", giving out everything that we don't need on these local groups. It is indeed the nicest what we ever got from Facebook.
This appears to require Facebook in the sense that local groups tend to organize there. I suppose this is actually the value proposition of Facebook but it still bothers me that we don’t have a better option. I can see real benefits to organizing this type of thing on FB even. My only objection is philosophical.
Why use a third party social platform at all? They have a website.
There are 3489502983450896 open source forum/groups software packages for every platform, every language, every database. Same with authentication. Hell, they could even drop in OAuth so people could still use their FB credentials without giving all their users' data up.
Hosting their own groups is a less than a one day job. There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for this decision. None.
Buy Nothing Project rules are simple: Post anything you’d like to give away, lend, or share amongst neighbors. Ask for anything you’d like to receive for free or borrow. Keep it legal. No hate speech. No buying or selling, no trades or bartering, we’re strictly a gift economy.
I don't know if this is actually a novel idea in the US, but in my country every city has multiple "trade X", "buy/sell X", "free X" groups. Where X is the city name and people give away free stuff or sell it for a small price.
And this is on top of sites like our local eBay and thrift shops where you can give away or get stuff for (almost) free, too.
I'm having a hard time thinking what this 'project' actually does.
We have one of these locally and I've used it to get rid of unwanted stuff.
In general I'm a bit negative on the idea actually - the hyperlocal aspect of it makes it susceptible to a sort of privilege bias. Rich areas will gift each other nice clothes, hifi equipment, computers; people living in poor areas, who might have far more need for this stuff, will be less likely to benefit (because there will be both less excess goods and more demand).
For this reason I just give anything of remote value to charity shops instead - they have the geographic distribution to spread donations around, and it means a charity gets direct monetary value as well.
I love this idea. I just watched the movie on minimalism on Netflix as well. It really brought to the fore of my mind how much stuff I have that I do not use, and reminded me why moving apartments was so difficult.
Related: Local Exchange Trading System (LETS), “a locally initiated, democratically organised, not-for-profit community enterprise that provides a community information service and records transactions of members exchanging goods and services by using locally created currency.”
“LETS allow people to negotiate the value of their own hours or services, and to keep wealth in the locality where it is created.”
Basically LETS are similar to the system described in the OP article, but in LETS you cannot take without having given, and value is assigned to transactions so that in order to get something of a certain value you must have previously provided at least that much value to someone else.
LETS are basically like a money based system except that they don’t use money, and the points can only be spent in your local LETS community.
Buynothing is the only reason I have a token FB account. It works extremely well. We probably gift something for porch pickup at least once a week. It’s really efficient.
Just speaking for how it works in Seattle, buy nothing groups are often more about making hyper local connections with neighbors and not quite so focused on the efficient transfer of goods. For example as soon as one gets too big, they split it up into smaller groups. It diminishes the audience for your post. I've also observed some odd behaviors in the buy nothing groups on Facebook I've been on where it seems like people are putting way too much effort into a posting for one single t-shirt or dress with elaborate descriptions. It seems like there's something going on that's not just about getting rid of stuff.
Freecycle on the other hand has broader distribution in one sense in that they don't force you to limit your audience. And no reliance on Facebook.
I found a local group and they denied me, I wasn't "hyper local" I guess you'd say.
They said they've been looking for a volunteer to run another group where I'm at (neighboring towns). They said you have to do a training. To run a facebook group? It makes me unsurprised they haven't found anyone.
There's a group for my county, as well, with only 2 members (I live in a pretty rural area), which I didn't try to join.
I have had the same experience but it really depends on the group. Some groups are very relaxed while others are incredibly gung-ho about the rules. Some seem to take their roles more seriously than others and the power goes to their heads.
It's not "buy nothing", but there's a forum local to my area where a sub forum is basically "curb pickup" and people post anything they want to give away. If someone else wants it, you put it on the curb in the time agreed.
It's worth taking a moment to look for such groups (they're often on Facebook). Where I live, there's a bunch of flavors to pick from. There are buy/sell groups. There are giveaway groups. There are "curb pickup" groups. There are hybrid "curb pickup"/"spotted" groups, usually named "Uwaga, śmieciarka jedzie - $location" ("Attention, the garbage truck is coming"), where people put both stuff they want to give away and interesting stuff they've spotted someone else throwing away.
On the food front, there are freegan groups. Interesting place to look if you want to see the degree of food waste happening daily. When I saw some photos just how much perfectly good, high-quality foodstuffs people can find in dumpsters by grocery stores, my jaw fell to the floor. We're talking "feed a family of 4 for a week from one garbage-spelunking trip" levels.
Further on the food front, I was happy to discover public food fridges are becoming popular in Poland. We have one ~5 minutes from where we live, so now whenever we miscalculate our cooking and end up with a bunch of food that we don't feel like eating, or some ingredients that we're sure we won't make use of before they expire, we just pack them, label with date and list of ingredients, and put them in the public fridge. Less food thrown away, somebody gets a meal for free, and it's much less awkward for everyone involved.
I don't think people realize how awesome Craigslist is for things that aren't good candidates for being sold on eBay because of shipping costs. I got a free aquarium a few months ago. It's great!
We’ve been a part of our local buy nothing group for a couple of years. It’s been really great. We had some neighbors we met in 2019 to our Christmas Party that year.
I’ve also been able to get rid of a bunch of stuff I don’t use, and we’ve received all kinds of things, including a Laptop and power tools.
I’ve found one of the most empowering things about giving stuff away is I’m free from trying to figure out if I’m getting a fair price for selling something, or if it’s going to “the right person”. No strings giving is really nice.
This is working well in parts of Manhattan - with group members in the thousands.. I’ve been able to give and get various things over the past 2 years.
I'd say the project/moment actually started way back in the Craigslist free sections. I know many people who furnished entire houses with nothing but great quality stuff that people wanted to get rid of. A large van or pickup truck and a reliable buddy is probably the best investment you can make. Heck people will pay you to take away furniture that they spent thousands on a few years ago.
This still works. It’s just more focused on giving stuff away in your local community than whoever is scouting Craigslist and willing to drive.
Probably trying to foster tighter built communities instead of some guy that drove 20+ miles away to pick up your old monitor that you’ll never see again.
In Switzerland there is Pumpipumpe (https://pumpipumpe.ch/en/sticker-en/). They offer stickers to put on your mailbox with tools and sports equipment you have and are willing to share. I believe this could work pretty well in apartment buildings.
This reminds me of Couchsurfing in the early days. Then came AirBnB, brought a business model, and the idea of a nice, friendly, moneyless experience was essentially gone forever.
I am surprised no startup (AFAIK) has tried to replicate and monetize the success of the Buy Nothing Project.
When there's a talk about Bitcoin, there are always people saying that deflationary money will lead to "no one buying things" and how it will ruin the world. Can't find those opinions about, literally, a "buy nothing" project.
I'm been a part of my group for over a year and the sis the first I've heard about a book.
Also, what did you expect? If you don't like the group, why are you on it just to complain. It is optional to be there. But, I'm sure you were already reminded of that during your crucifixion.
I know it is just so easy but to use Facebook for something Free makes it Not Free. You cannot participate without paying the privacy-tax. To me that is much more expensive than buying the stuff they share. I cannot put a price on privacy but it is up there around life-threatening before I would use Facebook and then it would be against my will. So for now I'll continue throwing stuff away.
Actually, it does work well! In my local Buy Nothing group, and I assume in others as well, people just leave stuff out on their porch at the arranged time, so that no physical contact is made except through the item. In that sense it's no more or less risky than delivery services or curbside pick-up at stores.
I’m not a fan of this. To me, there’s very little point to life besides buying things. It passes the time and sometimes makes me happy-ish.
I mean why else do I work and make money? Ultimately my answer is to spend it on things. I hate traveling so the idea of buying “experiences” has never appealed to me.
Environmental benefits don’t matter to me either. I have never driven a car, don’t fly, eat a plant-based diet, live in a tiny apartment, and will never have kids. My impact is low enough as it is.
You seen to have solid logic centres and a steady income. You’ve also put thought in to your impact on the planet as a whole. But the part that confuses me is that it seems you’ve not questioned the “work for money, spend money” script.
Billions of people alive today continue to work for things besides money, and optimize for all sorts of goals that are rewarding to them: positive impacts on the world that are magnitudes larger than they could do alone, the happiness of loved ones, refinement of technologies that people can use to help themselves, self-knowledge, and so-on.
There are so many different ways to live that I can fill my brain with them and still have no view of the end of the list.
> I hate traveling so the idea of buying “experiences” has never appealed to me.
That resonates; I find "buying experiences" philosophy to be a scam - a thinly veiled attempt to extract recurring revenue from people.
> I have never driven a car, don’t fly, eat a plant-based diet, live in a tiny apartment, and will never have kids. My impact is low enough as it is.
Could be lower. That stuff you spend your money on, it has a lot of embodied energy in it. Shame to have it manufactured when you could reuse it from someone who doesn't need it anymore. Shame to throw it away if someone else could make use of it.
Out of ways to be more environmentally friendly, this is one of the most low-effort, high-impact ones.
It could always be lower. The Jains are a good example of where that thought process goes. He's one of the lowest quintiles of environmental impact, any further focus is just nitpicking.
> That resonates; I find "buying experiences" philosophy to be a scam - a thinly veiled attempt to extract recurring revenue from people.
It depends how you look at it but do guess you do spend some time going somewhere on vacation. When I go camping or hiking I sort of still consider it an experienece to be bought and even if it is close to little it nevertheless costs something to travel, the cost of time off, etc.
The purpose of this is to help people meet their neighbors, do nice things for each other, and build local community more than it is to reduce consumerism (though that can be a nice side effect).
Yeah, it sounds like something like this would be perfect? The excitement of the hunt and fresh box opening and then days or months later give it away and begin the hunt anew.
Lots of typos and grammatical problems in the text make it untrustworthy for me. Plus, using "FB Groups" does not seem like a good idea as it alienates people who don't have a FB account or those who don't want to join groups out of privacy concerns.
Our little English town had an amazing Freecycle group running for a while that got us through the "baby clothes" issues that people are discussing here. But the next town over had a "Sell & Seek" group that was essentially the same, but for small cash payments instead of goodwill.
One woman saw the arbitrage opportunity and started accepting pretty much everything that came up on the Freecycle, only to re-list it on the Sell & Seek. My wife gave away a big basket of washable diaper stuff and watched as it all popped back up, one item at a time, for $5-$10 each on that Sell & Seek. Think about the emotional ride that puts you on, from thinking you'd single handedly sorted some new young mom, to realizing you'd been suckered by this... well, not nice person. Then multiply it by every member of that group that gave anything away in good faith.
The Freecycle just sort of went away inside of a month, and now all that's left is that paid version from the next town over.
All it takes for one person to do this and your community dies. Notice that she didn't ever do anything illegal or even "wrong" from her viewpoint. Just the same sort of "disrupting" and arbitrage that we see praised here all the time.
But it completely ruined a nice thing.