Via The BBC:

Chris Yurista, a DJ from Washington, DC, cites this trend in digital music as one reason he was able to hand over the keys to his basement apartment over a year ago.

“It’s always nice to have a personal sense of home, but that aside – the internet has replaced my need for an address,” the 27-year-old said.

Since boxing up his physical possessions and getting rid of his home, Mr Yurista has taken to the streets with a backpack full of designer clothing, a laptop, an external hard drive, a small piano keyboard and a bicycle – an armful of goods that totals over $3,000 (£1,890) in value.

The American University graduate, who spends much of his time basking in the glow emanating from his Macbook, earns a significant income at his full-time job as a travel agent and believes his new life on the digital grid is less cluttered than his old life on the physical one.

“I don’t feel a void living the way I’m living because I’ve figured out a way to use digital technology to my advantage,” Mr Yurista explained.

Mr Yurista feels by digitising his life, he no longer has to worry about dusting, organising and cleaning his possessions. And he says his new intangible goods can continue to live on indefinitely with little maintenance.

“Things like records snap and wear down over time. It’s upsetting. MP3s don’t,” he said.

Chris Yurista Mr Yurista feels his digital possessions can now live on indefinitely with little maintenance

The DJ has now substituted his bed for friends’ couches, paper bills for online banking, and a record collection containing nearly 2,000 albums for an external hard drive with DJ software and nearly 13,000 MP3s.

I wonder what Mr. Yurista will do if all his friends (whose couches he sleeps on) decide to embrace his ‘minimalist’ lifestyle as well? I guess it wouldn’t be so cool or trendy then.

For some reason I can hear Mt. Yurista saying “all I need is my laptop, my back pack, this paddle-ball game. No more… And this chair”: