One of the oddest things about modern capitalism is that we often do not own what we buy (and in some case what we make). Instead of buying the goods, we buy access to them, while someone else retains ownership. You cannot sell the goods, nor can you display or collect them in any meaningful sense. And so you cannot cherish the ebook or streamed music as you would a beautiful book or a favourite recording. It has no place: you cannot make it part of your home, and the discovery of it is never an event as discovering it in a glorious bookshop might have been. And worst of all, you cannot pass it down to future generations.
There is something oddly socialist about this arrangement: online property belongs to all, and therefore no-one. There is infinite supply, and so private property is a redundant concept. Instead, we have a global institution which can exercise complete control over the goods, granting and denying you access to them whenever they so wish.
It is the sacrifice of permanence on the altar of convenience. When it is complete, homes will be stripped on bookcases, pictureframes, record collections, files and cabinets, paintings... There will be screens and blank walls and noisy devices and little else. Nothing personal will remain in any tangible form. The home will become a barren place, and the world an ever more boring place as this new generation has nothing to pass onto the next. Instead, this power of inheritance will lie in the hands of companies, who will own both the goods themselves and the means of making and distributing these goods.
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