I came across a research article with the title: To Do or To Have? That is the question.
This research was done at University of Colorado at Boulder and at Cornell University. The basic finding of the research, completed about 5 years ago, is that people prefer experiences over material possession. The happiness derived from experiences stay with them longer than the happiness from the material possessions.
This definitely has serious implications for marketing people and books have been written on that topic. More interestingly, however, this has implications for researchers and entrenreneurs. In modern days, one collects all kind of experiences using different devices. There are only few services, however, that help you manage, revisit, and remix experiences. Researchers should look into these issues and entrepreneurs may benefit by developing products in such spaces and then using innovative revenue models for letting people remix and share their experiences.
I have come across this while looking at the market for services aimed at the very wealthy. What has emerged there is fractional ownership services. People prefer to share several jets, yachts, super-cars rather than just acquire one product/marque. The motivation is exactly what you mentioned: they prefer the experiences they enjoy, to just acquiring ownership of something. As western economies get even wealthier (note the assumption!) this will trickle down to the mainstream and new services will emerge.