Access Trumps Ownership

Alex Danco made a very interesting point about how technology is shifting us away from a world where we owned things to a world where we access things. As we demanded 24x7 access to all our content, sure enough, technological solutions propped up:

“Everything under the hood just gets magic-ed away, and provided for us as a service. No files, no updates, no maintenance; just access.”

We don’t buy music anymore, we stream it on our apps. Nobody buys maps because there’s Google Maps.

 

But that anytime, anywhere access comes with a price:

“The more you can access, the less it’s yours.”

Huh? Take Uber, for example. It has led many to stop driving their own cars:

“You just push the Uber button and somebody comes and picks you up. But it’s also not funny, because we’ve all experienced the particularly modern frustration of seeing the Uber drive in the opposite direction, spin around 4 times, then cancel. Access feels like the real thing, until it’s taken away from you.”

Like when that site or app shuts down… along with your data. Which is why Danco sums it up as:

“Everything is amazing, but nothing is ours.”

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