Tenth Step: Replace Ownership with Access

The book you buy may not really be your book

A digital book looks like a book. You click “Buy”. You pay. It appears in your library. In everyday language you would say: I bought a book. But Amazon’s current Kindle terms say something considerably more precise. When you purchase Kindle content, you receive a non-exclusive right to use it under specified conditions. Amazon states it directly: Kindle Content is licensed, not sold.[1]

That is the crucial change. You can keep a physical book on a shelf for decades even if the publisher collapses, the shop closes or the author changes their mind. A digital book exists inside a system of rights, software and accounts. For DRM-protected content, options for moving the file to other devices and applications are also restricted. In January 2026 Amazon enabled EPUB/PDF downloads for verified purchases of DRM-free books, a useful improvement that at the same time shows very clearly how important the technical distinction is between a file you actually possess and access managed by a platform. This is not a philosophical debate. It is the legal and technical architecture of digital ownership.[2]

“Purchased” can one day mean “removed”

In December 2023 Sony published an official PlayStation notice for users who had purchased Discovery video content through the PlayStation Store. Because of changed licensing arrangements, the original plan was for users to lose access to this content after 31 December. Not content they had rented. Previously purchased content. The official notice said users would no longer be able to watch it and that it would be removed from their video libraries.[3]

Following user backlash, Sony later reversed the decision after licensing arrangements were updated. Good. But the event revealed something more important than its final outcome. It showed that in the digital world, something the user experiences as purchased can still depend on a contract between two third parties. You paid. Yet your continued ability to watch depended on their licensing agreement. That is the essence of the access economy.

The car may be yours. A function inside it may not be.

The car is even more revealing. With physical things we are accustomed to the hardware we bought belonging to the vehicle and therefore to its owner. Software has blurred that boundary. Tesla currently allows customers to buy additional features directly through the app and activates them through over-the-air software updates. In some models, the vehicle may already leave the factory with hardware for certain functions, while the user activates them only after purchasing a software upgrade.[4][5]

For certain older Model 3 vehicles, for example, Tesla officially lists the possibility of purchasing rear-seat heating or a cold-weather package if the necessary hardware is already installed. Other upgrades can change vehicle performance through software activation. This is not necessarily deception. The buyer may know in advance what they are purchasing. But the change is enormous. The physical presence of a function no longer necessarily means its owner is allowed to use it. A software entitlement is inserted between the person and the thing they paid for.

And software entitlement can be switched on. Switched off. Changed. Moved into a subscription. Tied to an account. Tied to a region. Tied to a business model that may change with the next generation of the product. As software becomes an integral part of almost every object, control over software entitlement becomes part of control over the object itself.

A subscription turns an object into a relationship

An object you own is a thing. A subscription is a relationship. Every month the relationship must continue. Payment must succeed. The account must exist. The terms must remain acceptable. The service must exist. The provider must still permit use. And because the business model rests on recurring payment, the provider has a very strong incentive to keep you in the relationship. In 2024, after thousands of complaints involving recurring subscriptions and so-called negative-option practices, the U.S. FTC adopted its “Click to Cancel” rule, intended generally to make cancellation as simple as sign-up. A federal appeals court vacated the rule in July 2025 because of a procedural defect in its adoption; the regulatory problem the rule addressed did not disappear, and the FTC reopened the area for review in 2026.[10]

This is a small but important sign of the change. The economy increasingly does not end at the moment of purchase. The company wants a permanent relationship. A permanent stream of payments. A permanent account. A permanent connection to the user. For the company that means more stable revenue. For the user it means something else: stopping payment increasingly means stopping the function.

European policy openly explores access instead of ownership too

There is no need to search for hidden documents. The concept is called Product-as-a-Service. The European Commission treats it as one possible business model for the circular economy. Its logic is clear: the provider remains the owner of the product, while the user pays for use or for the result. EU technical criteria describe the model directly: the customer gains access to a product while ownership remains with the company providing the service. The product may be rented, shared, leased or used as a service.[6][7]

Why? Because after use the provider can take the product back, repair it, refurbish it, dismantle it, reuse its components and manage raw materials more efficiently. These are real environmental advantages. But again, look at the structure of power, not only the environmental benefit. In a classical sale: the company loses direct authority over the product when it sells it. In Product-as-a-Service: the company remains the owner even while you use the product. This is not a secret. It is the definition of the model itself.[6][7]

For years, author contributions hosted by the World Economic Forum have presented “access instead of ownership” models as part of the circular economy and more efficient resource use. Again, such a model may make sense for certain products. But society needs to understand what it is exchanging. It is not only changing a business model. It is changing the relationship between the individual and the thing.[8]

If you own nothing, someone else must own the things for you

This is the part of the debate that is often overlooked. Objects do not disappear merely because the end user no longer owns them. Someone still owns them. The car. The flat. The server. The software infrastructure. The tool. The device. The data centre. The licence. If ownership disappears on one side of the relationship, it often concentrates on the other. So the question is not only:

Is renting or subscribing more convenient?

It is:

Who will own the world if everyone else is only a user?

What happens to the individual’s economic power if they cannot keep anything essential without continuous payment? What happens to the ability to say no to a company if the company remains the legal owner of the thing on which you depend? What happens to inheritance? Repair? Resale? Lending? Modification? The ability to use a product twenty years after the manufacturer has lost interest in it? Ownership is not only an economic category. It is a form of independence across time.

That is why the right to repair matters so much

Interestingly, legislation is already responding to the danger of excessive manufacturer control over an object after sale. In 2024 the EU adopted its right-to-repair directive. Among other things, for certain categories of goods it prohibits manufacturers from using contractual clauses, hardware or software techniques that unjustifiably prevent repair. This is an extremely important counterpoint. It means the trend is not one-way. There is resistance to a model in which the manufacturer effectively retains too much control over a product even after selling it.[9]

But the very fact that such legislation became necessary exposes the problem. If ownership in the digital age were still as simple as it once was, special rules against software blocking of repair would not be necessary at all.

The most dangerous world is not necessarily a world without things

It can be a world full of things. But none are really yours. You live in a flat you rent. Drive a leased car. Software works only with a subscription. You watch films only for as long as the platform holds the licence. Books exist inside your account. Photographs are in the cloud. Work is on somebody else’s server. Your music is a catalogue. Your communication is a platform. Vehicle functions are software permissions. A smart device needs the manufacturer’s server just to remain smart.

On the surface you have more than any generation before you. In reality, fewer and fewer things exist independently of a third party’s permission. That is the paradox of the access economy. You can have access to everything. And at the same time own almost nothing.

What if that really is the direction?

Perhaps it is simply economics. Perhaps the environment. Perhaps more efficient use of resources. Perhaps business models that are simply more profitable for companies. Most likely it is some part of all of these. But the question of this path is larger. What if a world in which people gradually exchange ownership for access fits perfectly with a world of total control? Not because there must be one secret room where somebody wrote the plan.

But because access always requires someone to grant it. An owner has the thing. A user has permission. And permission has conditions. If you are only a user, the provider can change the price. Change the terms. Remove content. Shut down the service. Lock a feature. Close the account. Move the system elsewhere. Or simply decide that your profile is no longer compatible with its rules. Today it may be only a film. Tomorrow a car. The day after tomorrow the software without which you cannot work. What if one day we are talking about almost everything?

A free person needs something that cannot be switched off remotely

That is the essence of the tenth step. Ownership is not perfect. It can be expensive. Inefficient. Impractical. Sometimes renting is much more rational. But a society in which everything is access and almost nothing is ownership is structurally different from a society of owners. In the first, individuals possess things. In the second, they have relationships with providers. And every relationship can be terminated. So the real question is not whether we will use subscriptions. Of course we will. The real question is:

how many things must a person actually own before we can still call them economically free?

Because a person who owns nothing can live very comfortably. For as long as someone else permits access. And once an entire life is built on access, the next step is almost self-evident. It is no longer enough for the system to control the object. It must make the person love the arrangement. Make them experience control as progress. Make them experience loss of autonomy as convenience. Make them ask for still more integration themselves. That is the next station. Eleventh Step: Make Control Comfortable.