Better Than Owning - access trumps possession | Hacker News Reader

Better Than Owning - access trumps possession

kk.org

26 pointsdsims13 comments

I'll give you my own perspective with cars. I have owned some great cars and currently own a Jaguar XK8. Often it ties up capital and these cars can depreciate at an alarming rate. I got 'buyers blues' spending that kind of money and the novelty factor soon wears off. Contrast this with joining a supercar club - I joined one in the UK called Vitesse (www.vitessesupercars.com) and they have a range of vehicles that are there on a kind of timeshare basis. It sounds expensive, but in reality there's MORE fun driving them without the worry of expensive servicing, depreciation and the benefit of having different vehicles to choose from. Since I joined over a year ago I have less need to actually 'possess' and my life is more about the experiences now

It's strange that the author ignores the most important point until the very end, then doesn't do anything with it:

In traditional property regimes only owners have the right to modify or control the use of the property. The right of modification is not transferred in rental, leasing, or licensing agreements.

Access does not trump possession. Access (or the control of it) is possession, with both physical and intellectual property. If everyone had unrestricted access to everything, ownership would have no meaning anymore. This is not a matter of "traditional copyright regimes", but the whole concept of ownership.

And of course herein lies the problem with not owning something: someone else can deny you access to it, either though intent (Microsoft shuts down their DRM servers) or negligence (the company that owns the goods goes out of business).

I'd disagree with this entirely. In the digital era, ownership is so darned easy there's no reason not to own.

At the very least, I have no plans to let my glorious cloud overlords have that much control over my experience. Look at this in terms of power relationships and this whole essay is a paean to the virtues of turning over all control and power over you to somebody else. Thanks, but no thanks. I know how that story ends. Without possession there is no freedom.

I disagree with parts of it, but not entirely. For example some exceptions I can think of:

Hosting: I'm happy with MediaTemple and Slicehost owning the servers and bandwith and renting me access. Managing them is too time consuming and their value diminishes too quickly.

Boats, Planes: Again, owning them is a pain. Moving, maintaining and repairing them is expensive and time consuming. They lose value quickly. Renting time using them seems much better.

Houses: This one's a little more complex since the value often appreciates, but I think at times it's better to rent. For me, it means freedom to move, keeps more of my capital liquid etc.

The blanket statement "access trumps ownership" is too general, but I think his essay does bring up a valid point--in some cases, and perhaps more now than ever, access does trump ownership.

"If it flies, floats, or <fornicates>, it's cheaper to rent."

For almost any purpose I can think of, the roads of the world serve me as if I owned them.

If I owned the roads of the world, there would be a heck of a lot less traffic on the 101.

This article relates to what I believe will be a hugely important economic issue in the next 50 years: the ease of ownership, especially in digital media. We are seeing this now with legal markets, such as that of OSS, and illegal markets, such as music/movie piracy. As long as the ease of creating new copies of digital information remains practically nil, it will drive out capitalism in that sector. Whether or not this is a good thing remains to be seen, seeing as how capitalism is not built for such low variable cost markets. However, it is certain to have drastic effects on our future economy. If capitalism fails in that sector, it will cause an economic crash unless dealt with appropriately. Imagine a world with free music/movies. What incentive do these artists have to continue? Now you may argue that OSS works, so why wouldn't entertainment? The difference is that OSS has an extremely low fixed cost AND variable cost. That is to say it does not cost much at all to produce the first unit of OSS, and it becomes cheaper to produce each new "unit" of OSS. Also, many OSS contributors contribute so in their free time. They do not contribute as a primary source of income (for the most part). For the entertainment industry, which can have exorbitant fixed costs (millions of dollars for most films), the failure of capitalism will cause drastic shrinkage of the sector. While the shrinkage in itself is not neccissarily bad, the fact that it will occur so quickly will cause mass layoffs and general unstability of the economy. Where we go from there, nobody knows.

Well, I guess I rambled a bit there, but I hope that made sense :-)

If you can borrow anything you needed without possessing it, you gain the same benefits with fewer disadvantages. If this was a magic rental store, where most of the gear was stored "downstairs" in a virtual basement, then whenever you summoned an item or service it would appear at your command.

To a large extent, the super rich already live in exactly this manner. I would not be at all surprised to learn that Donald Trump doesn't own a car, but you can bet that when "The Donald" summons a car, one appears.

And with a few advances in automated fabrication and a lot of creative work by startups we could take this approach to a mass market. Although I think http://www.zipcar.com/ has the summon a car thing covered for the urban middle class.

This seems expensive. $50/yr + one time $25 + $70 daily? The hourly rate is cool I guess ($10) but really, standard car rental places are pretty cheap.

The final line of this overreaching and hand-wavy article had a keen observation:

"as the ability to modify is squeezed from classic ownership models (think of those silly shrink-wrap warranties), ownership is degraded."

Indeed, why would I want to buy a DVD for $20 when every single time it boots there is a minute of fluff footage that you are forced to watch? This is worth paying for?

If the traditional media (book, audio, film) companies don't wake up soon, then people are going to decide that the actual VALUE of all information is zero, even though it is clearly above zero.

As creations become digital they tend to become shared, ownerless goods. We can turn this around and say that in this realm of bits, property itself becomes a more social endeavor.

This is very true. It's really remarkable how the distribution of goods that can be efficiently digitized has really changed the landscape of industry.

Counterexamples:

- Marriage (the existence thereof)

- Toiletries

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