Oh man, I had no idea that the decision of whether to rent or buy skis required calculus to solve. I just figured that if you ski more than say, 3 times a season, it's probably better to own your own gear for reasons unrelated to the entry cost, but more to do with comfort, tuning, quality, and so on. Anyone who has rented skis knows that the rental fleets are trashed.

I have rented skis perhaps 70 times in my life and I have nothing bad to say about them. Maybe a broken buckle once or twice.

Yeah it's a fun problem but not really related to reality. Some important factors like: proximity to different ski resorts, travel plans, whether to rent demo skis or not, quality of rental skis, skiing proficiency and desire to grow, and many more all factor into the decision. Suffice to say, it's not much of an optimization problem if you're set on skiing every year.

its been a while since i was serious about skiing. but my impression was that when it comes to comfort, the most important factor was getting good boots

Renting skiis is okay. lets you try out a lot of different kinds. They all ride different

> Oh man, I had no idea that the decision of whether to rent or buy skis required calculus to solve.

The best decision is literally a bunch of equations that you want to solve / optimize. It is sometimes school level math, but that's rare.

This doesn't include the "Checked Bag fee" variable. Which is a significant component if you live somewhere you have to fly to ski.