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For many, many generations, people have been told to work hard if they want to own nice things, like cars, houses, boats and such.
The concept of "ownership" has been ingrained in Western culture, seemingly forever.
But that's not the way it has always been.
Many early civilizations were based on the concept of cooperatives -- where the community owned the assets and the individuals used them as and when required.
Even today we have many cooperative communities, although they're often treated as outside the mainstream by conventional society. We tend to think of little clusters of alternate lifestylers or hippies who go around chanting "peace, love, bells, beads" in clouds of MJ smoke.
Well guess what?
I think we're headed back to our roots. It's my belief that the concept of "ownership" has passed its best-by date and pretty soon it will be considered "so old fashioned".
In fact, the transition away from personal ownership has already begun and is being happily embraced by people all around you -- maybe even you yourself, without realising it.
Perhaps the most obvious example of this is music.
Time was when, if you wanted to listen to an album or music track whenever and wherever you chose, you'd go out and buy a physical recording -- a tape or disk.
As the purchaser, you would *own* this disk or tape so it was yours, to do with as you pleased.
Today however, things have changed -- a lot!
Increasingly, people no longer own physical recordings of their favourite music. They simply subscribe to something like Spotify or some other music service which allows them to listen to whatever they want, whenever they want -- but without the burden and cost of "ownership".
It's a concept that has been wildly successful because it gives you all the benefits of owning just about every recording that has ever been made -- but without the cost or other overheads (such as storage).
When it comes to music, we have already passed "peak ownership" of recordings.
Now let's look at other things which we've already gotten used to not owning -- such as cars.
You may own a car (or two) but odds are that you still rent a car, truck or van when it is more practical to do so.
Traveling overseas? Moving house? Taking a bunch of the local sports club to another town or city? Odds are that you'll rent a vehicle to do this because your own car is simply not available or suitable.
Now extend this to the same situation as music and you'll have a scenario which many people are already predicting: you won't actually own a vehicle but you'll be able to use one (for a small fee) whenever you need one.
Grab your smartphone and request a vehicle... the self-driving car, van or truck will arrive at your gate in minutes. You can then use it for as long as you need to -- then send it back from whence it came.
No need for a garage, WOF and rego, regular oil-changes, tyres, insurance, depreciation or any of the other costs which all add up to a significant chunk of change over the ownership life of the vehicle(s) you currently have.
Many large cities overseas already operate similar systems (albeit without the self-drive delivery) with both small commuter cars and bicycles and reports indicate that they're very successful.
Now, given the growing unaffordability of housing in NZ (and in many other countries), I suspect that the next thing we'll opt to no longer "own" is our house. In fact, despite the fact that for many years NZ has had one of the highest home-ownership rates in the world, it is already headed towards majority non-ownership (albeit mainly by necessity rather than desire).
If it wasn't for the capital gains that most people enjoy by purchasing their own home, it makes little economic sense to tie up so much capital in an asset which (aside from any potential capital gain) is essentially unproductive.
So whether by choice or by economic circumstance, we're moving away from the concept of ownership and towards the necessity of renting, leasing or borrowing what we need.
And, as if to make matters even worse -- sometimes, even when we buy something, we don't really own it anyway.
The whole issue of intellectual property is becoming a real nightmare -- as more and more of the things we need contain more than just nuts and bolts. Take tractors for example...
In the USA, tractor and agricultural machinery manufacturer John Deer, has been strongly criticised for effectively removing the concept of ownership from purchasers of its products. JD's extensive use of computerised systems and the fact that you don't own the code (or even an unfettered license to use it) means that you may not be getting everything you thought you'd paid for.
Even drone owners are now banging into this situation. If you're the proud owner of a DJI Phantom drone, the manufacturer has decided, without warning, that unless you hand over a bunch of information that *it* wants, they're going to cripple your craft -- such that it will only fly 50m away and only 30m high. The onboard camera will also be disabled.
I wonder how this will fly with NZ's consumer protection laws?
Ultimately, it begs the question "who actually owns the drone you paid $2K-$3K for in good faith?
So there you go... whether out of convenience, economic necessity or by way of duress, the concept of ownership is gradually disappearing down the gurgler.
Today's question has to be: Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
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