# From stuff to services

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2015-09-01

architect-this-city, atc, athiscity, bloomberg, car-sales, car-vehicle-sales, china, consumption, energy-consumption, fred-wilson, goods, goods-and-services, housing, personal-consumption, purchasing, service-economy, services, uncategorized, united-states, us-economy, vehicle-sales

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This morning [Fred Wilson](http://avc.com/2015/09/a-glimpse-into-the-future/) linked to a Bloomberg article on his blog called, [Maybe This Global Slowdown Is Different](http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-08-31/maybe-this-global-slowdown-is-different). There are a bunch of great charts throughout the piece and I’d like to share 3 of them here.

The first chart shows how per capita energy consumption has dropped remarkably in the United States since the 1990s, but how, not surprisingly, China’s rate is increasing.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/649c0539de6f7903d1859a140376dfe1.png)

The second chart shows car sales in the US. There was a big drop off during The Great Recession, and though sales have rebounded, they still haven’t reached their late 1990s peak. But that’s not to say that they won’t.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/a2a775b5a76648046989dc19d8dac34a.png)

And the third chart shows the tremendous shift in the US over the last 65 years from the consumption of stuff to services.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/eba8cef636157bc766317f2c2f1d63ce.png)

This last one is fascinating. And it ties into the argument that the way value is created in our economy has shifted dramatically.

But I wonder if this change is really as sharp as it seems. 

If you look at what makes up “[services](http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?reqid=9&step=1&acrdn=2#reqid=9&step=3&isuri=1&903=65)”, you’ll see that housing (and utilities) and healthcare make up over 50% of what is considered to be personal spending on services. And if you look at [housing and utilities spending](https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/DHUTRC1Q027SBEA) since the 1960s in the US, it has increased dramatically. 

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/76232574b84795c620f6734975a2c348.png)

So how much of this shift from stuff-to-services is actually being driven by housing?

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/from-stuff-to-services)*