The End of Ownership
Renting from the rich
📡 On my Radar
We’re renting the things we used to own.
Just yesterday Apple launched a leasing program for its devices.
Software that used to cost $2,500 in a box now rents by the month, forever. HP printers stop printing with full ink cartridges when the subscription lapses.
Ownership is becoming a luxury good.
This matters because in a capitalist system, ownership is agency. What you own, you control.1
An economy addicted to endless growth always needs a new source of revenue. When the easy money runs out, companies invent new things to charge you for.
Just look at cars. In the 1970s you changed the oil every 3,000 miles. Today you can go 10,000, and an EV never needs an oil change at all. Reliability is terrible for business. So manufacturers pack cars with complicated features that add little and break often. Hey look, two wireless chargers to cook my iPhone! BMW even tried charging $18 a month for heated seats already built into the car.
A subscription economy hits those with less the hardest. Nearly a third of buy-now-pay-later borrowers now use the loans for groceries. Subprime car loan delinquencies just hit a 32-year high, and homeownership among adults under 30 has fallen by more than a third since 2005.
Leasing everything builds wealth for someone else
The hopeful part is that pushback works. Drivers shamed BMW into dropping the seat fee, and farmers just won the right to repair their own John Deere tractors (crazy that we have to advocate for that).
I’d pull up a bank statement tonight and list every recurring charge. Most people find roughly $1,600 a year they forgot they were spending. Buy well-made things you can own and pass down.
📈 By the Numbers
👊🏽 Make a Difference
14 jobs
JOB | Fayaz Nawabi shares a Program Director role at Treehouse Foundation, an award-winning nonprofit driving innovation to create better lives for children and youth who have lived in foster care.
JOB | My colleagues at the California Civil Rights Department are hiring an Assistant Deputy Director of Enforcement to oversee housing discrimination investigations that protect the civil rights of all Californians.
JOB | The California Civil Rights Department is also hiring an Information Officer to keep the media and public updated on civil rights laws and resources, with a focus on the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery.
JOB | Jake Wood at Groundswell is hiring an Executive Administrative Assistant to help transform corporate giving.
JOB | Travis Moore is hiring a VP of State Expansion to build technology fellowships in all fifty state legislatures, starting with four states in twelve months.
JOB (6) | Elaine Pearson shares that Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division is hiring an associate to provide administrative support. Based in London, this is a junior role for someone early in their human rights career. Five additional positions also available.
JOB (3) | George Aye shares three leadership roles at Proportional Representation Hub: VP of Comms & Narrative Strategy, VP of Political Strategy & Outreach, and VP of State & Local Campaigns to advance proportional representation as a defining democracy reform movement.
🤓 This is Your Next
I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything, by Joanna Stern