Why Buy Things You Only Use Once? Enter the Subscription Economy | Kevin Kelly | Big Think

Why Buy Things You Only Use Once? Enter the Subscription Economy
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Could you imagine owning nothing? Depending on your stance on the concept of ownership, Kevin Kelly has a either a startling window into the future or an idea that will make your head spin. Take the so-called "sharing economy" and apply it to all the objects in your house. Would you join a Netflix for kitchen appliances, or would you rather spend $200 a pop on something you'll use once a year? Would you subscribe to a camping equipment provider paying maybe $35 a month or would you rather spend a grand on a tent you'll use two to three nights in the summer? Kelly's sharing idea isn't new (Uber, the aforementioned Netflix, AirBnB, the list goes on) but applied to the very objects that are probably surrounding you right now, it sure makes a ton of sense. "Imagine owning next to nothing," Kelly says in our interview. For the collectors and materially motivated amongst us... that might be difficult concept to swallow. Kevin Kelly's most recent book is The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future.
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KEVIN KELLY:

Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine, and a former editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Review. He has also been a writer, photographer, conservationist, and student of Asian and digital culture.

His most recent book is The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future.
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TRANSCRIPT:

KEVIN KELLY: More and more of the things that we find valuable weigh less and less. More and more of their value is in the things that don’t have any weight or mass. These intangibles are really what becomes the driver of our economy and if we can deliver these intangibles anytime, anywhere to anybody that instant aspect of them means that we, in fact, don’t have to own them anymore. So I really don’t own any movies. I subscribe to Netflix. I don’t really own much music. I have Spotify or Pandora, Apple Music. And increasingly that’s going to be true for games and books.

And if it’s true for all those things that we can make intangible very easily, it also is true that the benefits of subscribing to something rather than owning them are moving to the physical world as well. And we can see something like Uber as an example of that where if you can summon a car anytime, anywhere you want to, why would you own it? It’s going to be as good and maybe even better than owning because ownership has a lot of liabilities – storing, cleaning, maintaining, upgrading that we actually don’t really want to have. If we can subscribe and not own a car but have all the benefits of using a car what about other things? How far can that go? And we can kind of imagine pushing this to some far logical extreme where maybe some individual in the future doesn’t really own very much of anything. They can access or subscribe to everything in their lives. Maybe we can put all these together in kind of an extreme form and imagine a day in the life of somebody who is going about without owning any of the things that we normally associate with owning. Maybe even like clothes. So the way that would go is if you could have instant delivery to your box somewhere within a few hours of anything that you need anywhere you were in the world maybe you subscribe to clothes and clothes come to you. You wear them once, they’re taken away, they’re recycled and cleaned and they’re given to someone else who may only wear them once. And with clothes this is already happening in the high end of tuxedos and things that we know we only wear occasionally but can even go into daily wear as well if again it was something that was being recycled and cleaned and sent on to someone else whose body was scanned and digitized, and we knew from experience that these clothes were going to fit their body particularly.

[connorm]

Half of these '1 year subscription' things cost what it use to fully purchase a program.

[indertat]

The subscription economy is a trap. Owning things makes you independent.

[Webshooters]

I like owning what I buy and having the freedom to tinker with it in whatever manner I see fit. Cause there is a dark side to this just having a subscription for everything like what if a company decides it's products can only be used in a certain way or taking various items away when it's contract expires like they currently do with digital movies where you can only play them in a certain way, play them a certain amount of times, and once it goes away that money you spent is gone whereas with a physical copy I can play it however I want anytime I want.

[KootFloris]

This is going to be hell for the poor. Just when they need essential stuff it's taken away. And this is a great to make you pay more for less and a great way to keep people with jobs in line. Losing your job will now be downright dangerous. Not good for democracy. Thus certain businesses should be forbidden to run these kind of schemes.

[kolelokaram]

Yes but people like to tinker and modify.

[musicaccount-vd]

This has valid points, but I think ownership equity is going to be a big deal when it comes to things like your credit score.

[MichaelChavinda]

Ownership gives you security though. Imagine I ran out of money for my clothes subscription? Or my bed subscription? This subscription model is part of the reason homeless is on the rise.
I get that his argument is largely about things that you use infrequently but you can't discount the security of owning the value of the thing as well as the service.

[mrslcom]

Some things are better off with private ownership, and some things are better served with subscriptions or rentals. Pride of ownership is a factor that shouldn't be ignored. Material goods are usually better taken care of if they are privately owned. I think subscriptions could be an option rather than a replacement for ownership.

[ratatataraxia]

Why does this guy make it sound terrifying?

[cybercat]

Use once | Subscription - PICK ONE!

Subscription as a term implies more than once and more expensive as part of ongoing costs.

[BathroomTile]

Keeping things is important to me. It's how you preserve memories. I have my old games and consoles, old toys, action figure collections, old clothes, old videos, music discs and vinyl collections.
Also, If you rely on a subscription to maintain your memories, it can all go away if it closes down or something happens to it. Say goodbye to your whole music collection, have fun trying to remember all the stuff you like. You should always own a physical copy of the things you really love.

[dvklaveren]

We kind of already live in a subscription society. We just call the subscription money "taxes".

[SiberianTiger]

people who have roommates know that nobody cares about shared things. When you own something you actually care about taking care of it.

[michaelm]

A library where all the books are available to everybody has its advantages ... However, there was a book at my local library that I kept referring to, so I had to keep making special trips to the library to refer to it . I finally checked it out, and took it to a copy service where I'd photocopy a section every day . Finally, I had the entire book photocopied and bound in a thick loose -- leaf folder . I don't refer to it every day, but now I can refer to it at night, when the library's closed, or when there's four feet of snow on the ground . What I did has its advantages, but doesn't it defeat the entire point of an "own nothing" world ?

[Vritas]

First argument why one could resist this is, that in the longterm the subscription will be more expensive then the ownership option with maintenance time and expanse.

[carlislehuntington]

I think this could work for non-essentials, like movies, music, makeup, etc. But there is a lot to be said for owning things. Being able to keep and personalize our homes with our own possessions gives us a unique sense of place and identity that few would give up. (I mean just think of all the collectors out there) and while I do kind of like the futuristic austereness of the idea, it is a little sad to me and it does kind of denote a certain lack of agency. I don't think it'll ever go as far as he describes but it would be interesting to see how many things could be made in to a subscription based model.

[JaveyJenkins]

I think if you earned what I earned as an income, you would understand better why you own things. you are throwing away a lot of your resources to rent something. my car is 20 years old and I paid 800 cash for it. I put $150 a year on average into maintenance. I have owned it for 6 years and plan on driving it for at least another 10. Basically, you are too rich to understand why you own things. could you live the rental lifestyle on $16, 000 US a year? bet you can't.

[ThePayola]

Can I get a subscription to lovers? I don't mean prostitution, but the real thing. Something where you fight and bicker over stupid shit, then throw shoes at one another and finally make up and make out.

[JaysonT]

You really think that "renting" kids toys for 10ish years is cheaper than buying them?

[dschwamm]

If you make your living using products like, say, Adobe's Creative Cloud and then you fall on hard times and can't pay the subscription any more, you could have been paying that subscription for so long that you've put thousands of dollars down but now you can't access your tools and are made even poorer. Subscription models are great for businesses that want to sell a product to the same consumer over and over again, but the consumer is getting a much crappier value, loses security, and has much more to lose if their money situation becomes dire.