Ever sit around with your friends talking about how great the world would be if only someone would invent your supercool and totally useful widget? The community at quirky is based on the idea that everyone has a product idea. It's a social product development company. Would-be inventors submit ideas, the community works on them, voting, making suggestions, and so on, and one product each week is chosen to move onto development.
During the development phase, community members continue to exert their influence, and eventually products are offered for presale. When a product has a certain number of committed buyers, it's moved into production, credit cards are charged, and the product ships.
The latest community collaboration is the StashCan, a kitchen garbage bin with a built-in storage compartment that holds a supply of trash bags.
Step on the foot pedal to open the lid, and toss your trash. When the bag is full, remove it--along with the lightweight, plastic liner if necessary. Then--and this is the part you're paying the big bucks for--replace the bag from a spare located in the separate (but attached) trash bag compartment.
How much would you pay for such a bin? $8? $10? Well, if you order it from quirky, you can pay $54--and maybe the design will go into production and you'll actually get one. You won't be charged unless the product is built and shipped, but I think I'll just stick to my under-the-sink bag storage solution.