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Big Tech is Destroying Ownership

Aperture | August 30, 2025



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Do you own the music that you listen to? If you collect vinyl records or just happen to still have CDs laying around, then you do. But the majority of us in 2023 rely on subscription services like Spotify or Apple Music to borrow the music we enjoy. What about the movies you watch? Well, thanks to the access we have to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, very few of us feel the need to own DVD or VHS tapes anymore and have instead become borrowers of the movies we watch as well.

You might think these are just subscription models, but what about the games you buy from Steam, the PlayStation store or the Xbox Store, do you own those games? Or do you just own access to those games? If you own it, shouldn’t you be able to resell, lease, or even borrow it to someone else? These are just a few examples of how big tech has created a business model that has almost entirely erased personal ownership. And entertainment is just the beginning.

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Comments

This post currently has 47 comments.

  1. @ApertureThinking

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    Skip the waitlist and invest in blue-chip art for the very first time by signing up for Masterworks: https://masterworks.art/aperture
    Purchase shares in great masterpieces from artists like Pablo Picasso, Banksy, Andy Warhol, and more.
    How Masterworks works:
    -Create your account with your traditional bank account
    -Pick major works of art to invest in or our new blue-chip diversified art portfolio
    -Identify investment amount
    -Hold shares in works by Picasso or trade them in our secondary marketplace
    See important Masterworks disclosures: http://masterworks.com/cd

  5. @pokemongo-up3rq

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    (Goes skydiving)
    >Please login to your iparachute account to open parachute
    >Would you like to start a one month iparachute FREE trial?
    >enter email address and select a password
    >your password must have each of the following (a capital letter, a lowercase letter, a number, and a special symbol such as-

    SPLAT

  13. @esshor.

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    I download music files to my external hard drive. That’s how I do it. Not a big streaming fan. I’d prefer to have it always accessible to me

  15. @Adrian-qp8dm

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    The masterworks ad on this video is fucking hilarious and contradicts the warning of the essay lmao. What a joke. Netflix is bad but "invest" in artwork you don't actually own? Fuck off. Anyone reading this, if you're going to put thousands into masterworks, do yourself a favor and find some new artist (ie like a stock at a low price) that you LOVE and purchase a work for sometimes less than thousands and hold it. That's the real investment. Why the fuck would you ever discredit your essay with an advertisement. Jesus.

  16. @fahimahsan3603

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    It's really stupid that, these multi billion doller industries are aggravating and enraging many talented fellas to go out for piracy.
    Because the rules are really restrictive and manipulative for anyone to face.
    Their stupid rules make us more like victims , rather than loyal customers.
    They are just Hyper-milking through the demand.

  17. @qqq1942

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    You are paying for the access, same as with the library. You do not have to read all 175 million items that are stored in there.
    Then there is no need of owning DVD's. They consume space, generates more plastic waste & can lay on your shelf for 25 years never to be re-watched again.
    About the subscription, 179$ a year is nothing. You can easily spend this on junk you do not need, or one or two nights out in a restaurant.

  19. @baraahhamdi8533

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    i give myself a small gift at the end of rough day by listening to your thoughts , even how cruel people are getting and I'm kind of target of losing privacy more than anyone around me , somehow , i find sanctuary when i hear you talking about fears that already caused damage to me

  20. @stanislavdaganov574

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    OMG, you don't own the music you listen. The composer who wrote it, owns it. Whoever got the RIGHTS to it (a corporation) basically STOLE it, from the author, EXTORTED the author. The rights must stay with the creator, the author. He (or she) of course would have interest that more people listen to it (i.e. have access to a copy of it), even if they listen for free: they could earn from concerts, or at the very least, have the glory. Neither individuals, nor businesses should be able to buy and sell their personal intellectual product. Probably businesses should be able to advertise and distribute, under a contract, NEVER OWN THE RIGHTS.

    The video finally goes to a logical conclusion: A MUSEUM. A digital museum, in the cloud, should keep publicly accessible digital pieces of art, like classic video games, and digitized old movies, and music. Who's gonna pay for the hosting: of course the content is enough for any big information company to do that – keep archives with important classic content, earn from ads or whatever other way you can. A public digital museum, with individuals hosting the material all over the world, on their own PCs, like the way TORRENT works, is also an option.

    Certainly great pieces of art are of a higher priority to keep (AND NOT DELETE AND REMOVE FROM ACCESS) than the avalanche of crap trash personal videos and pics, crashes, disasters from CCTV cameras, mindless 4K video blogs at 60 fps full with idiocies, and so on – unless, of course, humanity wants to go the "Idiocracy" route – when, of course, if that happens, what you keep or not keep, accessible with subscription, or not, would be pointless anyway… If you get to Idiocracy level, it simply wouldn't matter. Just like the Dark Ages: once you degenerate THAT MUCH, it doesn't matter that the ancient Alexandria Library burned, or didn't burn. At least, not for the ignorant pathetic medieval pigs, who lived a thousand years of Dark Ages: they would be the same pigs, library or not library…

    Same with present art and culture. If you get to nuclear war, it wouldn't matter anyway, although, if some durable optical and high density magnetic data can be stored somewhere safe, for future survivors – containing valuable music, movies, classic games – this would be a great idea. I suppose durable OPTICAL STORAGE, like CD/DVD; most electrical devices wouldn't last for hundreds and thousands of years.

  21. @jesseroggio7260

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    Ive been even more persistent about building a library of my favorite albums, books, movies and magazines in physical form. Some people feel it's a waste of time, but anything that exists in the digital world can be altered or deleted. I have Berenstain Bears videos where the name is spelled with an E on the label and an A on the box. I also remember seeing Nelson Mandela's funeral on NBC in 1989. Someone wants to rewrite history and I know the truth.

  23. @McD-j5r

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    Well, I am sure they think they are powerful but actually we don’t own anything since ever.

    But is not their duty to invade minds that are not prepared to know about it right now.

    You are not operating with the flow nor you have harmony.

  25. @kayskreed

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    It's an issue, but having less possessions in exchange for subscriptions means that we save on limited physical space as well. Having too many things incurs an "expense" as well in a sense. Also, the argument could be made that we never owned anything in the first place, not even our bodies, and certainly not the planet. We are merely "renting" them for the time being. Perhaps the only thing we can hold onto is our experiences. But it remains a mystery what happens to those experiences post death, and some forget before then. Maybe we simply don't own anything at all.

  29. @Leto85

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    I'm not afraid of going to live in a borrowed society. I think it's about mindset: as long as you don't get too attached to whatever it is that you're consuming for entertainment, you won't feel that sad when you'll eventually lose it.
    When it comes down to it, you own nothing. But for convenience sake we say that we do.
    I can enjoy a show or movie without taking ownership to it. I don't own it, so when the company decides to take it down, I haven't really lost it.
    In another comment here I've read that one at least has ownership over one's own mind but even that isn't true; if it was, you'll be happy all the time simply by choosing to be happy. That, and we don't have free will.
    Not owning it makes me feel less attached, which makes me feel more free.

  30. @gods-eye-view

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    The future is all subscription based when it could all have been free! Sad that when humanity had the chance to be Gods, we still chose to remain dogs. Woe betide thee.

  31. @robbietorkelsonn8509

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    oh, yes, collective whining videos

    The way to go is minimalism, know what you want out of life, and the marginal cost will be close to zero.

    You do realize that owning utensils is stupid, because there are so many of them, the price is marginally zero and thus you can always go and collect them for free probably in the city you live in. It all just takes up space, and space is money.

    Buying software is idiotic, the only thing it proves is that you are in lack of knowledge and should really be spending your money learning something actually useful (games not included). I mean seriously, in a time when you can use python to do basically anything in an afternoon?!

  34. @dianaverano7878

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    I dont have spotify & netflix. Why pay monthly for something I will never own?

    I grew up owning CD, video game tapes. I like that.

    If I use grab cab (we dont have uber in my country), once in 6 months.

    It came to a point I walk for 3 hrs to have exercise. Not daily. But I save money when I walk

  42. @orlex1866

    August 30, 2025 at 10:34 pm

    we all knew this was happening right now but what can we do about it? if you think about unsubscribing then it might be hard because we depend too much on these subscription sevices too much so the real question is what can we do to it?

Comments are closed.

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