This is mind expanding. It makes me think of a system of ownership based on usage and care. Free bike, but if you don't use it or maintain it then it gets transferred to the next person. Only make toast one day a week? Then you get the thing on the day that your usage indicates. Tying this to how much the object is used by peers is a great way to answer the question of "how often should the bike be cleaned or how often should someone use their toaster?". The idea leads to less waste and more utility for everyone.<p>It's not particularly useful to personify machines by giving them emotional states. The toasters in question aren't "needy", they are efficient. The real innovation here is giving an object the ability to take action independently. If I'm not actively toasting then no amount of analytics or notifications are going to get me to pay more attention to it. Just handle it for me, sell it, upgrade it, downgrade it, replace it with a juicer. Giving me information about my usage is creating more work. Taking action for me is doing me a favor.<p>This whole thing reminds me of Autonomous Corporations [1]. It's generally better when things take care of themselves. The Internet of Things combined with intelligent decision making could lead to societies where people have more time and get more benefit from everything around them. The first and most difficult step is to get our things communicating with each other. Then we can focus on getting them to act on our behalf instead of just sitting unused.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Autonomous_Corporation" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Autonomous_Corporation</a>