The point of the subscription economy is ontological. Everything — can now be a service provided at a forever cost. Ownership is often about a transactional completion, where you acquire something and then move on, satisfied with having met your need. It’s finite, with a clear start and end. Subscription, on the other hand, is a perpetual commitment, a continuous cycle that prevents closure. It keeps you tethered, never fully satisfying the need in a permanent sense because the expectation is that you’ll always be engaged, always consuming, always involved. It’s a structure that denies the ability to “move on” because it’s built around an ongoing dependency. In this way, the subscription economy by redefining time also reshape the very nature of “self”

Really enjoyable read on how two models of economic engagement, ownership and subscription, shape our personal experience of space and time and collective psychology in that world

citizen 01 of the city in the sky /autopia

Writer, senior editor, music nerd, GenX eldergoth, monastery-bootstrapper. https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson https://tinyurl.com/Black-Stone-Wordsmith

I agree it’s something to ponder, especially if you’re passionate about the creator economy! It made me question my loosely held beliefs about subscriptions. I still see them as useful for patronage, but an entire economy based on rentals (subscriptions) would dramatically change the relationship people have with things and the world.

Thanks for quote-casting this. I've never really liked subscriptions. For years I've been casting about (unsuccessfully so far) to find more sustainable models for supporting creative work.

But this is the first I've seen about ontology in relation to the "subscription economy." Something to ponder. 🤔