A world without private ownership increasingly ceases to look like a dystopia from science fiction. It is becoming a marketing promise of \u201cconvenient access to everything.\u201d<\/strong> Supporters of subscriptions and sharing argue that the end of private ownership is a natural stage in the development of the economy: one in which what matters is not possession, but the experience of a car, an apartment, music or software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The architects of the \u201csubscription economy,\u201d such as Tien Tzuo, founder of Zuora, argue that the world is moving away from products and toward services. \u201cWhy own anything?\u201d<\/strong> Tzuo asks. He also warns that companies that fail to shift to a subscription-based relationship model may, in a few years, no longer have a business left to shift. Reed Hastings of Netflix, Daniel Ek of Spotify and Larry Ellison of Oracle act in a similar spirit. All of them consistently build models in which we pay for continuous access to content, infrastructure and services, rather than for a product we own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ownership is dead. Long live usership,<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n – Tzuo declared<\/a> triumphantly several years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the consumer\u2019s perspective, the arguments are tempting. There are no large one-off expenses, cancellation remains possible, updates come included, maintenance problems disappear, and waste may decrease. In this view, the end of private ownership appears as liberation from the burden of possession<\/strong>. Instead of worrying about repairing a car or updating software, we simply log into a service and use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Behind the fa\u00e7ade of convenience, however, lurks the serious risk of a universal rental economy. A model in which almost everything is rented silently assumes that someone still remains the owner<\/strong>: a platform, a fund, a group of shareholders. These few owners will decide who gets access to their resources and on what terms \u2014 from films and cars to critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They will also gain the most from such a model, driving ever greater accumulation of capital in the hands of an ever smaller group of people. Research into the subscription economy shows that, in the overall balance, users often pay more than they would if they bought outright. But when problems arise, they are left without assets<\/strong>. They build no wealth, have nothing to pass on to their children and cannot simply \u201cown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ability to change terms of service unilaterally, raise prices or block accounts becomes, in such a situation, a tool of real control over most of society<\/strong>. History shows that ownership gave people not only status, but above all independence: the ability to decide about one\u2019s own life without constantly asking for permission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No wonder terms such as \u201ctechnofeudalism\u201d and \u201cfeudalism 2.0\u201d appear more and more often. In the old feudal system, the lord owned the land while peasants could only use it. Today, platforms own the digital \u2014 and increasingly physical \u2014 infrastructure, while users lease access. If the \u201cend of private ownership\u201d applies only to the masses, and not to corporate elites, then we are not dealing with emancipation, but with the transformation of ownership into a privilege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Critics of the subscription model stress that the end of private ownership strikes at the very essence of humanity. From John Locke, who saw property as the fruit of labour and a source of freedom, to contemporary psychology, ownership has remained deeply tied to identity<\/strong>. When something becomes ours, we begin to treat it as part of ourselves. The things we own influence how we think about ourselves and how we define who we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEnd of ownership: business is already making money from it<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Subscription instead of ownership. The price rises quietly<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The end of private ownership gives power to platforms<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Technofeudalism: private ownership only for elites?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Private ownership is more than things<\/h2>\n\n\n\n