Owning nothing = no equity.
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
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Reminds me of the old saying around, Cant be conservative if you have nothing to conserve. It really does come into play when we have young trying to build a life and have stability. Ripping that away and renting everything back does not build communities.
Can conserve power structures that give someone else the right to our surplus. 😅
Because it's renting. From every company that can get exclusivity to something you want to rent.
I remember in the 90s when you had to buy CDs and DVDs (or VHS). It was awful. You couldn't afford much so you had to be stingy in what you watched and listened to. At the time I remember dreaming of endless content options that I could try. Streaming is that dream. The fact that the shitty companies are making it worse and increasing prices doesn't mean the streaming subscription model is inherently flawed.
I do wonder despite the flaws of the old system, was there something genuine lost?
You had to actually "hunt" down what you wanted to watch, make discoveries, build context and knowledge to what you want to watch / listen to. IMO the "hunt" is part of the joy in the same way as perhaps building a PC is a big part of the whole gaming enjoyment and at the end of it you can sit down and fully emerse yourself into the art. Now? You are presented with an almost infinite choice of what to get spoon-fed and I feel it de-incentivizes everything. The distinction between music and noise isn't about the physical properties of sound. Instead, it depends on how we perceive and assign meaning to what we hear. My point is, it's harder to create that meaning these days.
They did touch upon this in the video. Seems like the new streaming model creates a passive, scrolling consumer rather than an engaged enthusiast where "art" becomes just disposable content pushed by algorithms.
Also, streaming pushes you to over-consume on stuff, which causes the same problems.
I find that now I listen to a much broader selection of music. If anyone recommends a band I'll listen to their album. In the past I couldn't afford to buy the albums of every band someone else liked, so I stayed in my lane (musically) with what I listened to.
The most annoying thing is that so many people keep doing it that it's profitable. I'm in my 40's. My only subscription aside from phone and Internet is a VPN.
Wow there's some really bad deals here!
History is full of trendy hustles, but people aren't usually dumb enough to keep falling for them forever. Probably that will apply to these, too, and a lot of shitty subscriptions will go the way of the Juicero.
It's worth mentioning renting rather than owning isn't an intrinsically bad concept. Owning your own bus probably doesn't interest you, and while streaming costs are going up, it's still a better deal than buying a DVD you watch once.
You have to think when the infamous "own nothing and being happy" quote was coined, they were imaging there still was a nice diversified portfolio of investments in the background, which amounts to owning a small piece of everything.