“Netflix for Legos” is an awesome idea. But can it scale?

Lego. I spoke to my parents about 6 months ago whilst they were having a clear out of family toys from yesteryear - their main question: &quot;What do you want us to keep for your (potential) children?&quot;<p>My answer was quite simple: &quot;My Lego and my Brio - that&#x27;s about it&quot;<p>Lego is made to last a lifetime and more, specified to an extreme degree and made with tolerances far and beyond most consumer electronics; it is something that can be inherited. The important part here is that I wouldn&#x27;t want my children to inherit a set - I would want them to inherit the bricks - that is the fun of Lego. I want to give them 2 30 gallon boxes of bricks and boards and men and all sorts because creativity is not born of following instructions - it comes from deciding to create an aeroplane from the odd bits and pieces that you have at hand.<p>There is a very good reason that these[1] adverts aren&#x27;t for sets - Lego is amazing because you can create whatever you can imagine with it and for that reason this doesn&#x27;t sit very well with me. But then I have 60 gallons of lego waiting for me when I eventually procreate so what do I care...<p>[1] <a href="http://speckyboy.com/2009/03/16/39-creative-lego-advertisements-creativty-without-bricks/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;speckyboy.com&#x2F;2009&#x2F;03&#x2F;16&#x2F;39-creative-lego-advertiseme...</a>

I feel this takes away a lot of the fun. There won&#x27;t be mixing and matching of sets and peices; no experimenting nor creating new things. Partially because it won&#x27;t be allowed (what parent will want to re-sort the sets), but mostly because it&#x27;s impossible (you only get one set at a time).<p>Legos were awesome because you could experiment and build and create new things. Now, they&#x27;re just a paint-by-numbers, follow the instructions, build something Hollywood designed type toy.

I&#x27;ve been a subscriber for months.<p>Their selection of the larger sets is limited, which is understandable. They&#x27;ve been getting better, but there have been times when it took days or weeks to ship the next set because I only wanted a 1000+ piece set, and they didn&#x27;t have enough of them.<p>The sets I&#x27;ve received have either been brand new (still in original plastic bags), or missing several minor pieces. You can log in and tell them which exact pieces are missing and they&#x27;ll ship them to you (or supposedly add them to the set for the next person), but it&#x27;s only after you&#x27;ve tried to build the full thing that you know all the pieces that are missing.<p>Unlike Netlix DVDs, it&#x27;s hard to turn around a set quickly. I end up holding onto each one for a week or three.<p>I enjoyed the Lego Movie, it touched on the idea of following the instructions vs building something unique. Pley&#x2F;Pleygo is trying to encourage inventiveness, with photo contests.<p>Still, I&#x27;m happy with the service, and have recommended it to friends.

I told my kids about this. They were like &quot;how is that like Netflix?&quot; I realized to them, Netflix is a company that streams video to you. They don&#x27;t remember a time we used Netflix to get DVDs in the mail.

This is kind of off-topic, but still kind of relevant I think.<p>I think the &#x27;killer&#x27; for Lego is going to eventually be 3d printers. A subscription service for lego sounds cool and all, but I&#x27;d rather be printing exactly the pieces I want (or going to a local vendor using a fancier 3d printer to make them). I kind of see this toy angle being the first probably breakthrough for it once the tech gets good enough.<p>I&#x27;ve long had a theory that Lego is vulnerable to 3d printers in exactly the same way as Polaroid was to digital cameras. Polaroid also seemed on top of the world for a while, but they clung to their model too long and it was too late.

1. The plural of Lego is Lego.<p>2. You get a set with 1273 pieces. You find out there are only 1265 pieces. There is great sadness.<p>3. When you combine Yellow Tiger and Red Tiger and all their friends you get Voltron. You can play with friends and share, at the end of the day you uncombine and you each have a tiger. Much fun is had. With Lego if you combine Lord of the Rings and Spiderman much fun is had. When you try to uncombine you end up with a lot more red and blue in middle earth than there used to be.

Being able to &quot;lose&quot; 15 pieces out of each set without incurring any penalty sounds like a great way to grow the home lego collection. The Pley membership cost isn&#x27;t cheap but neither are new lego sets.

Being lego, this actually solves a lot of my immediate worries:<p>Sets can be weighed back in. Missing pieces are held in stock and can easily be replaced.<p>Lego can go into a washing machine&#x2F;steriliser.<p>It is light and virtually impossible to damage in transit (assuming they devise good packaging)<p>There is minimal depreciation, and demand for new sets won&#x27;t be absurd. (vs textbooks and general toys)<p>You have to work hard to hurt yourself with faulty lego.<p>The only problem I see is (for my family at least) Lego was faddish. We didn&#x27;t touch it for months, then couldn&#x27;t get enough of it for three weeks. This is a difficulty for a subscription model.<p>Overall this is an excellent idea.

&quot;LEGOs are crazy-expensive. If you want to buy a Star Wars set bigger than your fist you’re likely to drop $50 or more. &quot;<p>Not really. When you are buying Star Wars set, you are paying for IP. Of course it is incredibly expensive. It is different when you are buying non ip packs of bricks and less popular sets. Brick price measured by volume or number is cheaper then ever been.<p>Here is someone who calculated it: <a href="http://therealityprose.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/what_happened_with_lego/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;therealityprose.wordpress.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;01&#x2F;17&#x2F;what_happene...</a>

The phrase <i>Netflix for Legos</i>, gave me absolutely no idea what was their service, until I visited Pley website, where it clearly said, Rent LEGO. Sometimes you just can&#x27;t apply software analogy to hardware.

If I can check out the best of Lego ever; Space Lego: then I am a customer.<p>Lego&#x27;s worst mistake was discontinuing that. Mine was not keeping what I had over the decades. Same Mistake...